Ridden
by phfina
Summary: Chapter Summary: Rosalie asked me if this were 'fun.' Firstly, ... well, what's 'fun? I had never experienced that in my life. And secondly, making supper as Rosalie's slave is supposed to be ... 'fun? I'm Bella Swan, and I think I may actually be having fun ... for the first time in my life.
1. A Ride

**Story summary: **You know what it feels like to be so totally owned by someone that you can't even think, you can't even breathe, when they're near you? You know what it feels like to know that you chose this? I do. I'm Bella Swan, and Rosalie Hale owns me. Body and soul.

* * *

"Hey, Bella, you want a ride home?"

Rosalie looked at me with her hungry eyes, and my knees went weak. Of course I wanted a ride home. Of course she knew I needed a ride, having brought me to school this morning, and every morning for ...

God, has it almost been a month?

It's been almost a month that I've been Rosalie Hale's ...

Yes. _The_ Rosalie Hale. The captain of the cheerleading squad. The most popular senior at Tolland High School, the richest girl in town, _Ha!_ 'In town'? More like the county! And probably in the whole State ... well, in the Northern part of the State, ... Strafford did have all those rich kids of stock brokers.

But still.

"I ..." I said, then seeing her glare, turning my insides into weak, quivering jelly, I added quickly, "Yes." I said. "Yes, Rosalie, I want a ride."

Rosalie smiled, pleased with herself, pleased my utter and complete submission to her every whim, pleased with her total control over me.

Because it's been almost a month I've been Rosalie Hale's slave.

I opened the passenger door of her Ford Explorer and started to get in quickly.

Rosalie's hand stayed me, freezing me in place, half-in, half-out of her monster car that you could still smell the 'new' in it.

"Are you properly prepared for a ride with me?" she asked archly, and she glared at me, her face neutral, as if she were asking about the weather, but her eyes sharp and calculating, missing nothing.

I blushed and looked away. I couldn't look at her, examining me like that. It was is she were looking into my soul, seeing everything, judging me harshly.

"Yes," I whispered, looking away. "Yes, I ..."

"Speak up, Bella!" she cut in. "I can't hear you!"

"I..." I tried much more loudly ... for me

But Rosalie interrupted me again. _"Look_ at me when you're addressing me!"

Did you hear that? She said _'addressing'_ her. Like she was too good for saying 'talking to me' like everybody else did. No. She was Rosalie Hale, and if you thought she was like anybody else, well you thought wrong.

Dead wrong.

I dragged my eyes to meet her cold, critical ones. "Yes, Rosalie," I said meekly. "I... I... prepared for the ride. I ..."

I bit my lip.

_"Say it!" _she hissed.

"I took off my panties, Rosalie, just like you told me to!" I blurted out as quickly as I could.

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! What if somebody heard me? I looked around quickly, but the school parking lot was deserted. Just me and Rosalie: a perfect tableau.

I was embarrassed and ashamed, stammering out what I just said.

But Rosalie?

Her harsh and demanding features instantly mellowed. "Great!" she said cheerfully. "Hop in!"

And that's when I realized I had the choice. I could call it all off, shout, "No! Not any more! We're done!" slam the door in her shocked face and walk home.

It was only, what? Two? Three? Four? ... Five or, ... even six miles from school. I could do that. It would take hours, every day, in the morning and in the evening ...

... ooh, Winter. What about Winter? Walking to school in the pitch black pre-dawn in Winter in Connecticut? That would be hard. But not as hard as walking home when they let out school early because of an on-coming snowstorm that would swallow me whole as I was walking home.

And I didn't have a coat. I had a denim jacket. Thread-bare. With patches. That would keep the freezing cold out, wouldn't it? For more than two seconds? But what about my holey sneakers?

But how much was my pride and freedom worth? Was it worth five miles each way to school?

Because no one else would touch me now, no one else would dare offer me a ride, seeing I was Rosalie's.

Nobody crossed Rosalie Hale.

So I would have to walk for the rest of my life. Seriously.

I was poor. My family was dirt poor. 'My family.' My mom and me. And her occasional, random boyfriend. If we were lucky, he wouldn't hit her, ... or me. She cut hair so we could eat. Sometimes. And so she could drink. We didn't have a car. We barely had an address in the trailer park.

But I could do that. Other people did. Live off food stamps and the dole and walk or ride a bike everywhere when they had work to buy one.

I could.

I swear I could. I could wipe the smug expression off Rosalie Hale's face and walk away, head held high and _make her_ come _begging to me_ to give me a ride home. Or make her go find another new 'best friend' to pick on but realize I was the one she couldn't bend and break to her will.

I could do that. I could be that little irritating piece of grit in her eye that she casually and carelessly wiped away, leaving me in the dust, as it was she who walked away unscathed and found her next toy to play with, and to break, and to make feel like she was the luckiest girl in the world when she rode up to her and asked if she wanted a ride home, because ...

Because that's what stuck-up, super-popular, 'most-likely-to-succeed,' number one girl in the school, fuck, in the whole fucking world, was doing for me.

I got into the car, no ... SUV, buckled up _(safety_ was _important_ to _Rosalie)_, and hung my head in shame.

I was ashamed of myself how easily cowed I was by her, by my situation in life, by everything. I was ashamed how low I had sunk, and ashamed I saw that, and just accepted it, playing right into Rosalie's hands.

Just like always.

Rosalie shifted into drive, and we sped off. The pure power of the vehicle pushing me back into my seat.

It was nothing to the pure power Rosalie Hale had over me.

I wanted to cry. I couldn't. I could only look at her, causal, arms relaxed on the steering wheel, but in complete, utter control of her car and everything around her.

She was Rosalie Hale. And she owned me. Body and soul.

* * *

**A/N: **Hi, my lovelies. It's been a while. I read the story "Ridden" by Couture on literotica-dot-com, and then I couldn't not write this. I asked Couture if I could continue her story, but I never got an answer, so I made this a little BellaRose fic. Trying something new. Rosalie's _human! Eeek!_ God, I want her to own me! _I didn't write that!_ ... um, what's behind you?

Bye, my lovelies!

**Update **(yeah, 'update soon,' yeah, I got it): _Couture wrote back!_ Here's what she wrote:

"Sure, just please post a link to my story and name.

Cheers!

Couture

www-dot-asstr-dot-org-slash-~Couture

www-dot-literotica-dot-com-slash-stories-slash-mem berpage-dot-php?uid=46698

"

So, there you go! YAY!


	2. Mind Games

**Chapter summary:** Rosalie wants to ... 'talk'? And 'with' me, not 'at' me? What could she possibly want to 'talk' 'with' me about? Why can't she just whip me and be done with it? Why does she play these mind games with me? And she's holding my hand? Being tender before bringing on the terror? Oh, God, this is going to be so bad! I'm Bella Swan, and I am so fucked.

* * *

Something was very, ... _seriously, ..._ wrong.

Rosalie Hale was being nice to me.

You see, I figured it out. Took less than a month, and no, I'm not proud of that, and, yes, I'm stupid, thanks so much for agreeing with my report cards since seventh grade, but ...

But, see, Rosalie's a sadist.

The only reason... the _only_ reason she'd be nice to me was because she was winding up so she can swing her hammer on me.

When she was nice to me, I'd breathe a sigh of relief, and drop my guard, hoping that this time ... that this one time ... her nice was real, and kind.

And then, right then, is when she'd drop the hammer.

It makes the hurt hurt more, when you're suffering the mental anguish of betrayal, you see.

And Rosalie's a sadist, but I'm _so_ not a masochist ... I think it'd disappoint her if I were, actually. I think if I enjoyed the agony she poured out on me, every day, that it'd be less fun for her.

You see, Rosalie Hale is a vampire. I mean, a real, honest-to-God vampire. And I'm not talking about those lurid, smexy books where vampires leer out a _"I vant to drinq your blahd, blah, blah-blah! Mwahahaha!"_ No, nothing stupid like that. Rosalie Hale drank me up, drop by drop, by my suffering. My mews of pain?

They fed her.

And there was no escaping this. There was no way out. I was utterly, completely, under her spell, and she could do anything to me, for hours and hours, and she did, _oh, God, she did_, but the payoff? when she really lost it, and howled in total abandon, and threw me down hard, and rubbed herself furiously against me and came so hard, and held me afterward?

That holding me afterward?

I would sell my soul for that one moment in time, those five, ten minutes when she held me like that, totally spent, panting, sweating all over me, crushing me into the table or the floor or, if I were really, really, lucky, where she threw me onto her big, fluffy bed, and held me like that under her, and I held onto her ... like that? Just like that?

I would sell my soul for that. I probably have. I'd sell it again.

Because why? you ask. Why would you let this person utterly dominate you, torture you, fuck up your mind, post pictures of you (I think, oh, my God, she's posted pictures of me to her friends! Fuck, I'm so fucked!) naked, whipped, beaten, on your knees taking little tiny bites of caviar or whatever she was eating at the table from her hand ...

Why would you do that, Bella Swan?

Well, firstly, I'm an idiot, and I get that, okay?

And ... well, no, that was secondly.

Firstly, because I love her.

Yeah. I'm an idiot. Thanks.

But I do. I don't care. I love her. God! I love her.

Because why? you ask ... well, besides 'see idiot' when you look up 'Bella Swan' in the dictionary, that is?

I'll tell you why.

Rosalie Hale was the only person in the whole-fucking-wide world who noticed me. Ever.

That counts my mom, too, by the way.

See, that day when I went up to her, knees knocking, self-esteem thrown out the window _centuries_ ago, and asked her for a ride home from school...?

She said like _'Sure,'_ so casually, like it was no problem whatsoever for her to take a complete detour from school not to go to West Tolland but to go to the other side of the tracks, the poor side of town in her car that screamed _'Rich Bitch!'_ to drop me off miles out of her way so she could go home, and that didn't make her think a second thought?

That's when the alarm bells should have gone off in my head. But they didn't. I was just so grateful because her's was the last car in the lot and I had had no luck that day for some funny reason.

Some funny ... orchestrated reason. Rosalie had put the word out earlier that day through her 'network' of friends to all the juniors and seniors who had cars. I was now _persona non grata_ in everybody's book that didn't want to catch Rosalie's ire.

And everybody else in school did _not_ want to catch Rosalie's ire. They weren't stupid. Like me.

But she said 'sure' just like that and 'hop in, Bella,' just like that. And I was shocked — _shocked _— that in a school of one thousand kids, Rosalie Hale would even know my name!

Shocked, and blind-sided.

Because when we were going down the road, and she said she had to stop by her house first so she could pick up something unspecified and asked if that were okay, and, like, what could I say but sure, that was okay, but then ...

But then she got me into her house, and sat me down, and ...

And ... you know those horror movies where the girl is backing down a dark hallway, and you just so see the bloodthirsty psychopath right behind her wind up with the ice pick, and you're screaming at the screen for the girl to run, you stupid idiot, run for your life, but she doesn't, she just backs right up into him and they have the quick cutaway and the splatter of blood across the window nearby?

Yeah. That.

You all were probably screaming at me to 'Run, Bella, you stupid idiot! Run for your life!' But did I listen?

Nooooo!

So she sat me down in her living room? rec room? whatever-the-fuck-room that wasn't a kitchen that was bigger than our trailer? And the ceiling was so high I swear to God you'd need binoculars to see the detail on the crown molding?

What the fuck is 'crown molding,' by the way, and why would the Hales be _proud_ to have spent over one-hundred-_fucking_-thousand dollars on it on their 'home improvement' project? I ask you!

But then she said to me, very coolly, very knowingly: "I've been watching you, Bella."

And that's when the pit of my stomach dropped out through the bottom of the footstool she sat me on, and my mouth went drier than the Sahara Desert.

And I thought: Rosalie Hale has been watching _me?_

And I thought, at the same time, _why?_

And I couldn't think much else, because the terror gripped my heart, and squeezed it, and wouldn't let it go. What had I done? Had I murdered somebody? Stole something? Cheated on a test? Sleepwalked to her house and told her all my deepest, darkest secrets?

Apparently I had, because she had me all figured out.

And she needed something from me.

She knew I wouldn't be getting rides any more. I actually didn't live in the school district. I lived in an unincorporated area. Mom and me had to move out of the apartment we lived in when we got evicted after we defaulted the third time straight on the rent, so I wasn't in Tolland any more, really, and, yes, I'd have to go to school, and, yes, I'd be bussed, but to Hartford? Where I knew ... who? anybody? nobody? and would it be a nice school in Hartford? I don't think so, and the commute to and from when I had zilch for energy that day because it was an unlucky day and I didn't have the two dollars for the school lunch that everybody else complained about the blandness of it, but not little, skinny me who wolfed it down and looked longingly at the other kids _throwing out_ food on their trays that they _didn't like?!_

And wondering if I would be willing to sink so low to dumpster dive for supper, and never, ever having the guts to do it, ... the shame and ridicule would kill me dead, and I could live on an empty stomach for another night.

So I had to beg for rides to and from school, or else I'd be bussed to Hartford, and I don't know what you know about Hartford, the 'Insurance Capitol of the World,' but from what I know about Hartford, a poor, white girl ...

... well, I wouldn't last long, going to a public school on the East side of Hartford, the _'non-_Insurance' side of town. Or you did have to pay insurance. Your virginity. For your life. Or you just paid, and got raped and murdered. Read the fucking papers. Four guys raped a girl on a pool table when she walked into a bar to ask for directions.

I don't ask for directions. I just keep my head down, walk quickly, and think, 'ugly, skinny girl, not worth your time,' and hope for the best.

Well, keeping my head down and hoping got me into Rosalie Hale's ... 'den.' Yeah. Den.

That's what she called it. The family den. Just like a lions' den, and Rosalie, with her mane of long, golden hair, was the lioness looking at the meek, little lamb, me.

Baa-baa. That's me.

And, God! She could not wait to sink her claws and teeth into me, because ...

She laid it out for me. How she went to cheerleading camp and how one girl had a birthday and how Rosalie and the other girls got to spank her and how she ... how she ...

How she got so fucking turned on, giving that girl her three licks when it was her turn on her, but three licks wasn't enough. She needed more. Rosalie needed more.

The way she was looking at me, so tightly controlled, but not masking the hunger in her eyes, ... I was rooted to the spot.

I wonder if that's what happens to birds when a cobra stares them down before they strike. They say some birds die of a heart attack that way, even before the snake touches them.

So she told me. She'd give me rides, but she'd get her licks. On me. Starting today. Take it or leave it, Bella, but that's the deal.

And then she left the room, and let me think about it, about my hopeless situation, about how I could stay at her house and play video games with her and hang with her and drink diet coke, that I'd get for her, too.

How did she put it? That I'd 'fetch' for her. "Fetch me a diet coke, too, Bella, while you're at it, please."

And she came back after a while, allowing me to stew in my stew, and asked for my answer.

And played it oh-so-cool when I gave my answer, but inside I saw she was ecstatic.

And inside, I was ready to puke.

So why did I say 'yes,' then?

Besides the obvious of me being stupid, of course, and being dirt poor and back into a corner with _no_ other options, by the way, and thank you so much?

Besides that?

Well, Rosalie Hale was _so cool!_ And to be noticed by her? Singled out by her? Be near her?

It was ... intoxicating. Addicting. Like a drug, but way, way better, because a drug got you high, then strung out, so you were nothing more than an addict, there was nothing left of you any more.

But being around Rosalie? Even as she treated me like shit? Like her play-thing? Her toy that she could use and abuse?

At least she was treating me like shit. I didn't rate that to anyone else. Ever.

You want proof? Who loves you more than anyone else in the world other than your mom? Who? Nobody, right?

I tried reading a poem to my mom once when I was thirteen. It got put into the yearbook. It got picked up by some poetry magazine.

Mom was busy. She had a hair appointment she had to keep with _another_ dead-beat customer who kept putting payment on her 'tab.'

That was the year everything started spiraling for me, personally. Drugs. Suicide attempt. Held back a year.

Fucking _held back a year. In fucking seventh grade!_ Even with the 'no child left behind' national policy.

Lost all my friends. All of them. Lost weight, and I can't look in a mirror anymore. You see that haunted look of those war refugee kids in Syria or wherever?

That's what I saw when I look in the mirror: Bella Swan, no-life loser.

Nobody would go near me, or talk to me, or anything. They only gave me rides out of pity, and, now, a senior, pity had run pretty thin, and Rosalie was telling me that well had run dry.

But if I did this, if I just bent over for five little licks, Rosalie would give me a ride every day.

Rosalie said she would be my friend.

And ...

And you can judge me. You can sit in your easy chair and say, 'Sell out!' and 'Whore!' and 'Cunt!'

I sold myself to her that day. Willingly. And you can judge me.

But Rosalie Hale is now my friend. My only friend in the whole world.

And she treats me like shit. But at least she notices me. To everyone else, I'm invisible, or an annoyance, a walking corpse, just waiting to be buried so I can be out of everybody's way, because I'm an embarrassment to them.

But Rosalie notices me. And when she's around, she doesn't let _anyone_ talk shit about me.

And that feeling... oh, my God, that feeling, being noticed and protected by someone so high above you she has to stoop to look at you on your tip-toes?

And when she is kind to me? I mean, really kind to me, and not kind-but-planning-some-evil-backsided-whack, but really kind, and caring, and protective, and loving, ... and when she holds me?

I swear I've died and gone to heaven in her arms.

Did I say why I said 'yes' to her that day?

Did I mention I love her?

I love Rosalie Hale. I love her more than the sun and the moon and the stars and all the other romantic crap I could ever write in a poem, and it wouldn't touch how much I'm in love with Rosalie Hale.

And she'll never, _ever,_ know.

She just uses me and abuses me and cums on me like I'm her fuck-slut toy and looks at the adoration in my eyes and smirks her superior smirk and tousles my hair affectionately, and if anybody else did that, I would bite, hard, into their wrist, but when Rosalie Hale does that affectionate little hair-mussing thing?

My insides melt as I look into her amused eyes, and I fall for her again, so fucking hard, it actually physically hurts inside, in my guts.

But I've never told her this. I can't. Not to her.

If I told her, she'd give me that look. That 'well, that's weird' look, and she'd break it off, and never speak to me again.

At least I have this, this inbetween feeling, this agony, that I can hold onto. This unresolved _thing_ with Rosalie. Or, maybe, it's very resolved for her: she gives me a ride, and then, at her house, she rides me, rutting on my whipped backside like a bitch in heat, and that's that.

No romantic entanglements to weird her out. It's just physical ... well, pleasure for her and blinding pain for me, and then some tender holding, but not love. No, not love.

Love complicates things, and Rosalie is a very direct, very businesslike person. She doesn't let messy, romantic, stupid emotions like love complicate her life and cloud her cold, calculating judgements. She's too smart for that.

She leaves those things to us poor people. Weak. Sniveling. Stupid. Not worth her time.

So that she deigns to look at me, give me a ride, beat me to tears, hold me afterward and kiss and kiss and kiss my tears away.

I'll never tell her I love her. I can't give up her holding me. I can't give up my ride, and everything that comes with it.

'Everything that comes with it' is Rosalie Lillian Hale.

And I love her.

But I'll never, ever tell her that.

Ever.

I looked at her, the one I loved with my whole heart and more if I could find it, perfection in black capris, a white cotton tee and a shimmering grey button-down blouse, simply dressed and elegant, not at all slutty, like some girls dressed like, showing off. No, Rosalie didn't show off. She didn't have to. She could model for, like, Land's End or Nordstrom... you know: the classy look.

She was all class, and I was all trash, and she stooped to give me a ride.

But to love me?

I swallowed the bitterness of my unrequited love. It tasted exactly like what gall would taste like.

Rosalie sensed something, and she looked over at me and smiled. She smiled a warm, winning smile, and my heart went up into my throat and I had shortness of breath, then she did something unexpected, so totally out of the ordinary for her, she reached over and took my hand in hers then raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, sweetly.

I was freaking out. My stomach was doing flip-flops. Why was she being so nice to me?

And then she did something else really weird. She didn't return my hand to my side, so her hand would brush against my thigh, if she wanted to work me up slowly and subtly, or if not the slow burn, the direct approach where she'd flip my skirt up and start exploring my dirty cunt with her fingers to see how wet I was, thinking of her, slut that I was.

That's what she called it: my dirty cunt. And that's what I was to her: her slut.

But she didn't do that. She placed my hand on her lap, and held onto it.

I looked at her questioningly, not daring to speak, and not dropping my guard for one second.

But her face ... it had no guile in it. It was calm and relaxed and at peace.

And I found my will weakening, again, stupid me, and I found myself daring to hope that this might be one of the times that she was nice to me.

And I wondered, if it were one of those times, what it was that I had done to deserve her affection and tenderness?

But I knew the answer to that. I could only do things wrong. When she was nice to me? It was because she just wanted to be, and there was nothing I could do, hard as I tried, to win that or earn that. She was nice to me because she wanted to be, and the only thing I could do is to soak it up like a sponge, and brace myself for the onslaught when her anger came, a tsunami of fury and rage, washing over weak, defenseless me.

Because it always did. Rosalie Hale wasn't a human being; she was a force of nature, and all I could do was hold onto the reins and ride the tornado that was her, and hope and pray she caught me as I fell from heaven down to the cold, hard earth.

And ...

And ... she always did. She always knew when I was falling, and she always caught me.

Always.

But it was like that. I could never predict her moods or her anger ... or I could, but there was nothing I could do to protect myself from her will, her determination, her, okay, complete domination over me. Nothing.

She.

Owned.

Me.

And she could do anything she wanted with me. Anything. Any time she wanted to. And she made that very clear to me, every single day I was in her power. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.

Rosalie turned her gaze from the road to look at me, and then a smile burst from her that was brighter and warmer than the Sun itself.

And inside, everything in me crumbled into dust, and my will was completely blown away by her attention and affection.

And my eyes welled up, and I prayed, _please, God, please, o God, please let her catch me when I fall_ as I looked into her crystal-cut baby blues, lost in her eyes and she smiled at me.

She turned her attention back to the road and her smile dimmed, but easily, and my tummy was full of her warmth, still, as she held my hand in her lap.

"Bella," her voice broke the silence of the car, "I have to stop by my house first, if that's okay?"

Oh, God. Her house. Her house with traps in every room for me to stumble upon and get tied up in, literally, and where she had a few hours where she got to play...

With me.

Or there were the chores. Doing her laundry. Folding it. Vacuuming her floors. Or bucket and sponge, wiping down the linoleum on my hands and knees. All the while presenting my backside to her as a perfect target.

Then there was cooking her supper for her in an apron, and nothing else.

And if her mom ever came home early from work, and found me in the kitchen dressed like that? Or 'undressed' like that, cooking Rosalie's supper?

But her mom never did. She was some partner at this high-powered law firm, always working late into the night. Lucky me. Or ... lucky for Rosalie. She had oodles of time to play with me.

Her eyes slid to me questioningly, demanding I answer her request.

"That'd be,..." I whispered timorously, "That'd be fine, Rosalie."

I had to agree. I had to agree with everything she said and everything she asked of me, when she was feeling magnanimous, or told me when she was feeling herself, or screamed at me when she lost it.

There were rules, you see, and that was one of them.

She gave my hand an affectionate squeeze, gentle, not firm and commanding, and turned her attention back to the road, making a sharp left turn to head toward West Tolland.

_Her_ side of the tracks.

"Good," she said, pleased. Then she paused and pursed her lips.

"And there's something..." she said cautiously, "... I'd like to talk with you about."

Talk?

My heart rate went through the roof.

Rosalie never wanted to 'talk,' to chat with me, to rap. I wasn't her _buddy,_ I wasn't her _bestie._ She never wanted to 'talk' _with_ me, she talked _at_ me, and all I could do while she ... talked ... and did other things to me, was to hold my breath in my body, otherwise I'd be screaming it out, and she did so love my screams ... all I could do was that, or to scream, and to pray that I could last until it was over.

And I never could. Not once. She always broke me, even the very first time with just five little licks, with her merciless hand on my stripped naked-assed backside, was more pain than I could bear, and I actually broke down and cried when she left the room to freshen up.

And that was just the first day.

No matter how much I thought I could take, Rosalie always had more to 'give,' and she broke me down, every single time.

And she loved it, breaking me down to a sniveling mess on the floor, then holding me afterward, kissing away my tears.

I think she actually fed on my tears, on my misery.

But ... 'talk'?

"Okay," I said weakly.

She heard the catch in my voice.

Rosalie Hale was perfectly attuned to my body that betrayed me in every single feeling it felt, be it waves of fear, or, when she worked me over, agony, or, when she melted my heart, or when she gave me that dark, hooded look and she _made_ the lust course through my body, and _made_ me give myself to her, willingly, as she took me, over and over again.

She knew every feeling I felt, better than I did.

She had stripped me naked nearly every day and owned me, but she did more than that.

She had peeled away the layers of my brain, and she had examined every thought in my head. I could hold _nothing_ from her, not even the thoughts in my head.

"Bella," she said reprovingly, "I just want to talk, that's all."

Then she added reassuringly: "It'll be okay. Really."

Her reassurance ... wasn't very reassuring. _'It'll be okay'?_ What does that mean? when anything I did before the 'talk,' whatever it was, or after, would just tip her off? And what if I said something wrong _during_ that talk. She'd frown that disapproving frown, and then it'd be off to the races, with me running, running, running trying to make right what I had done or said wrong, but my efforts would only make her more furious and the punishment all the more stingingly painful.

And what did she want to talk about with me? More rules? More ... what? How could I prepare for this new twist from her when I didn't know what she wanted me to do or say?

"Okay," I quavered.

Her lips turned down. She started to frown that disapproving frown.

Fuck, I was already fucking it up. I saw her relaxed expression tightening.

Fuck, I'm so fucked.

She squeezed my hand again, but she had a distracted air.

You know. The look before all hell broke loose from her. All over me.

She pulled up to her house and the garage door opened and swallowed us up.

She turned to me and looked at me coolly: "We're home."

_Her_ home. Her ... _lair_.

She unbuckled, got out of the SUV and opened the door for me. She didn't let me let myself out of her car, not after the first time I tripped on my way out and nearly cracked my skull on her concrete garage floor.

The mess would've been embarrassing for her, I suppose. And Rosalie Hale is a neat person. She can't abide mess in her life.

She handed me down from the car.

"Let's go," she commanded, and turned and let herself in to _her_ home, holding the door open for me.

I swallowed and followed her in.

* * *

**A/N: **My lovelies, I've already written the next chapter/interlude, and you are in for _such_ a treat! A stingingly little Bella-yummy treat! If pain is your thing. And another 'p' word ... ;) Now all I have to do is to figure out how to work Bella's little reflection on past visits to Rosalie's house into the story being told here... Or does that sound like an excuse to leave you hanging on for that update notification? hehehe! I am _so_ wickedly-naughily-...evilly ... _bad!_

**p.s.** The introductional lyricism of "I'm Bella Swan, and I'm ..." whatever she is at the time (usually owned or fucked, as the case may be) is not mine at all. I lifted it directly from the "Lizzie Bennet Diaries" vlog, and it is the best damn adaptation (serialized) piece I have seen since ... well, ever. It reminds me of the freshness and brutal honesty and sweetness of "Anyone but me." Go take the two hours and watch'm and fall in love with the Bennet sisters all over again as they struggle through being modern, independent women in today's world.


	3. Panties (and soap)

**Chapter summary:** Okay, when Rosalie said she wanted to talk ... or did I mis-hear the first letter? I'm not sure. I _thought_ she said 'talk,' but I guess the first letter was an 'f'? Sort of? Anyway. What_ever!_ What Rosalie wants, Rosalie gets. And, boy, did she get some. I'm Bella Swan, and I'm so fucked. Or was. By her. A lot. NSFW. (p.s. Oh, and she bought me presents, too, but you'll never guess what. Unless you read the chapter title, you pervs!)

* * *

Rosalie walked me into the house, then turned on me suddenly and slammed me against the door, pressing into me hard, and started to grind.

"Fuck, Bella, fuck!" she cried. "Fucking ... quick, take off my pants!"

I was shellshocked for a second but then reacted quickly, unbuttoning her capris and sliding them over her hips.

Her hourglass hips. She stepped out of them, toes pointed, dancer's feet, then flicked them away from her with a whip-crack flick of her foot.

Her panties were black satin, matching the color of her capris, but they were soaked, no: _drenched._

_"Quick!" _she gasped as she continued to grind, "quick, Bella! _Quick!"_

I understood. I hooked my thumbs around the waistband of her panties and slid them over her hips. They fell, with a heavy splat onto the floor at her feet, and she kicked them away from her, forcefully.

That one kick was a second's pause, but that was all she needed. She glared into my eyes, panting with lust, then grabbed me by my hair by the scruff of my neck and pulled my head back, hard.

Then she screamed into my face.

I gasped in shock, taken aback, and that's when her lips crashed into mine, and she kissed me passionately.

Her other hand was busy, it flipped up my skirt and then her hips sought mine, and she squirmed about until she found what she wanted.

My cunt.

Her clit was engorged and was rubbing about until it found my slit, and she rubbed up and down, side-to-side, viciously, until my body reacted, and my little clit peeked out from the hood.

Our clits touched, and that's all she needed.

She snarled right into my mouth, and it felt like her snarl was going right into my throat, so it felt like _I_ was snarling.

And then she threw her head back and howled. No. She screamed.

_"FUCK!"_

It was over before I even knew what hit me.

She rested her head on my shoulder and panted her way back to reality, her breath coming like the blows from a bellows.

"Fuck, oh, fucking fuck, Bella," she sighed, as she continued to breathe big gasps of air, holding me up against the door to her garage.

But then her breathing changed, and she pulled back a little, and examined me closely.

Then she got a wicked, evil, hooded look on her face.

Oh, no. Oh, God, no.

And she started to rub against my cunt, nice, and soft, and slow.

"Cum for me, my sweet little cunt," she purred.

And I looked at her with what probably qualified as the dumbest expression a girl could make.

I thought she wanted to talk with me?

"Cum for me, Bella," she coaxed, and rubbed, softly and sweetly.

"Um, ..." I said helpfully.

She shook her head. "No, sweetie, not now. Don't think. Give yourself to me. Give yourself to me and cum for me."

"Uh, ..." I said helplessly.

"No," she said. "Just let go, baby, please. Just cum for me."

I opened my mouth, probably to say something just as intelligent as I had been saying, but that's when her lips came gently down on mine, and she silenced me with a kiss as she continued to sway and to slide her hips, gently rubbing against me.

Then her hand that had flipped up my skirt? It eased its way from the bottom of my shirt up to my tit until it found what it was looking for.

She gently began tapping, oh-so-softly, on my nipple. Tap-tap, then tap-tap. And then she repeated that, over and over, softly and gently as she kissed my lips and ground into my cunt.

I think that was about the time I said to myself, 'fuck it.'

I mean, really. Rosalie Hale rubbing up against you, telling you to cum for her?

Who am I to say no?

I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms about her.

She hummed in pleasure. Pleased that I obeyed her in this, and in everything.

I think, but I'm not sure, that I lifted up my leg and wrapped it around her hips. You know. Just to help her a little bit. Just to pull her into me a little bit more, a little bit harder.

She got the hint. She pressed harder into me, and I ...

Well, I maybe ... kinda ... started rubbing her back. A bit. Maybe.

I think I moaned then.

It took a while, but I ...

Well, okay. I did cum, okay? It wasn't her screaming whatever-the-hell-that-was, and I think I'm going to have PTSD from that, I swear to God, but she brought me all the way up, gently, and she brought me all the way back down.

And, okay. Yes, I came.

Afterwards I sighed into her mouth. I felt her smiling.

She kissed me, looked into my eyes, and kissed me again.

Then she wrapped me in her arms and sighed contentedly.

"Nice," she remarked.

Just that. Just a remark. Not snide nor superior, just an observation. It was 'nice.' She couldn't have been talking about her Big-'O' because there was nothing 'nice' about that. Terrifying, yes. Nice, no. So she must have been talking about mine, but why would she care if mine were nice?

Why would she care about me? and how I felt?

She pulled back, smiled at me, brushed an errant strand of hair out of my face and then ...

She smirked and tousled my hair.

Swear to God. I swear to God, that annoys the hell out of me, but ... that God damn Rosalie Hale melts my insides every single time she does that.

She pulled me from the wall and sat me down in the den.

"You want a diet coke?" she asked solicitously.

I hopped right up to fetch one for her, but froze when she gave me a glare and then pushed me back onto the easy chair.

The easy chair. Not the footstool where she usually sat me.

And then she went into the kitchen herself to get us the drinks.

Holy fuck! Holy fuck, what had I done this time? This was fucking serious. This was so fucking not the routine. What the hell was going on?

You see, the routine was, well, what I said before. _I'd_ fetch her a diet coke, then I'd prepare her a supper of whatever she wanted. Her menu was planned on the refrigerator door, and I learned to cook her meals exactly the way she wanted them.

You don't have to ask how I learned to cook, do you? I learned the hard way, okay? One very painful punishment for each and every cooking snafu I made.

And 'exactly the way she wanted' included me, too. Naked. I cooked her meals naked except for a cooking apron, and I think that was more for show, so it would hide just a little bit of me, so it would drive her insane with lust, not being able to wait to rip that thing off me after I finished cooking so she had a tough time choosing which to eat: supper, or ... me.

And then, after supper, after Rosalie fed me from her plate by hand, me, on my knees, face upturned like a little bird that she fed, sometimes getting the food in my mouth, sometimes not, smearing it all over my face, and then kissing and licking my face clean, driving me insane with shame and wanton lust, her little pervy slut...

She always, always put me in place. _Her_ place, that is: exactly where she wanted and how she wanted me to be.

After that, I had to wash the dishes, keeping my ass clenched against a probing invading finger, if I were lucky, or if I weren't so lucky, then it was a spatula that sang through the air before it struck my backside so hard I thought I was in space because I think I saw stars as it struck me.

After that? I had to wash my panties. By hand. In the kitchen sink. Under Rosalie's close supervision. If I wanted them back... the next day ... after she hung them out to dry, on her deck, in full view of every neighbor whose house backed to hers. It was an elitist community, so that meant only two or three neighboring houses within binocular range, and guess which sports stores in town suddenly had a rush on binoculars, huh?

God almighty, rich people are such fucking pervs, having nothing better to do than to ogle teenaged girl's panties hanging out to dry, for fuck's sake!

Apparently the Hale household's dryer was much too good for my panties. That's why they had to be hung outside in full view, you see. Not to advertise that I was Rosalie's bitch, or anything like that.

I had run out of panties a couple of weeks ago. Rosalie kept souvenirs from me, her conquest. So she bought me new ones.

The shocker for me was the ones she bought for me weren't slutty. They were pretty, with pastel rainbow stripes, or little and big red hearts, or with the word 'love' in bold, block letters. Not black panties, that was her, but so not me, and she somehow knew this, so she chose white cottens or pale pinks and blues.

And when she gave me them, I almost broke down and cried as she made me open the package, breaking the seal that no one, not her, not the sales lady, not anyone had broken but me, and try on my first pair, and ...

... and it fit perfectly, not tight and lewd, exposing a camel toe, but ... just right. They were ...

They were pretty and modest. Just like I thought myself to be.

And ... she read that in me. And gave me fresh, clean, pretty panties that were sweet and feminine. Brand-new, not faded and thread-bare, fringy at the bands, like my old ones were, washed out to barely nothing, almost worn to holes in some places. No. She gave me something by taking and taking and taking away my poor, ratty undies and just gave me a whole package of bright, colorful, demure panties, and I ...

I almost broke down, right there in her room, trying on my brand-new panties ... her gift to me that she knew I needed, even as I didn't. I didn't even notice my own panties. I just wore them.

But Rosalie noticed. And ...

Cared.

And I fell in love again with her, all over again, in that moment, just like that.

She could be so harsh, and so cold, and calculating and cruel, and then just ...

And then just melt my heart with the thought and attention and kindness and care she put into a simple, little gift. Just for me.

But it was a gift for her, too. Everything was always about her, even her kindness to me.

Because ...

Because that first day she owned me? She said, 'no more panties, ever, that dirty little cunt is mine now, you got that?'

And, well, nice theory, for her, but ... in practice, it didn't quite work out. Not even that first day, when, yes, I obeyed her.

She didn't think about gym class.

When it came time for gym class, and I was in the locker room, realizing my predicament now, with thirty other girls all changing into their tees and shorts, and me, standing there, trembling and then ... I couldn't do it. The longer I waited, the more curious stares I got. And then I got physically sick, vomiting on the floor as my thumbs hooked on the waistband of my skirt, ready to pull it down furtively, but by then I felt every girls' eyes on me. And as I was puking onto the locker room floor, girls gagging and clearing the locker room, avoiding me like the Plague, I think I actually blacked out.

I woke up in the nurse's office. The nurse was cool and professional. But she knew. And I almost got sick again, right there, seeing her _not_ looking below my face. I would've gotten sick again, but there was nothing in my empty stomach now to heave anymore.

So it was a new rule after that. Rosalie had a ... change of heart, so to speak. She relented. She backed down on her command, something I thought her incapable of doing, ever, and I got to wear panties again, the day right after that day, right after the day Rosalie told me never to wear them again. Now, she let me.

But I had to take them off before I got into her car for the ride home that day.

That was the deal for my ride home from school with Rosalie Hale, my own personal, dominating, sadistic driver.

Oh, and I had to have proof I was thinking about her. During school.

Proof. On my panties. That she could smell. Right in front of me. And make me smell, her holding my panties to my face and waiting for me to breath in my musk.

And when I did, she would smirk an evil, wicked smirk, and snarl a gleeful 'you dirty, little slut!' and then she would drop them into the sink, watching me wash them, blushing so hard with shame, washing away my so obvious shame, my so obvious stain: the shame of wanting her so bad, even in school.

That turned her on so much. Sometimes she'd lose it and grab me, slamming me against the counter and hump my ass until she came. Other times her fingers would work me up into a frenzy, teasing and caressing my tits, rubbing and probing my slit, invading my ass.

But she wouldn't let me cum. I had to keep washing those panties as if nothing were happening, as if she weren't driving me insane with her fingers and lips and super-intense stare. She'd reduce me to a quivering mess as I washed my panties and make me beg for it, then she'd ask what I'd done 'to deserve a good, hard cum, huh, Bella? What have you done to deserve it? What are you willing to do?'

And by then, I'd be willing to do anything. Just 'please, please, please let me cum, Rosalie, please! I'll do anything.' 'Anything?' she'd snarl. 'Anything!' I'd beg.

And sometimes, if she were feeling particularly nice, she'd let me cum right there, and laugh at me as my knees buckled and my eyes rolled up into my head and I moaned as quietly as I could, trying to hide my weakness from her that I never could. 'You slut!' she'd snarl contemptuously, ... _gleefully, ..._ as I came, 'You horny little cunt, Bella! I swear to God!'

But sometimes, ... she'd take me up on that 'anything,' and strap me down, or across, whatever was available, and get to work. On me. And my ass. Just my ass, ...

... if I were lucky, that is.

Oh, but when Rosalie Hale works, she works with a will.

But the way she works ... with her hand, or the paddle, on my backside, using the full strength of her body to break me, to make me cry out, ...

But her other hand, stroking my clit, oh-so-gently, teasing me to a fever pitch, but keeping me suspended there, and while doing that, snarling in my ear as she worked my ass into a blistering, searing mass of agony, 'Goddamnit, Bella, you're so fucking wet! You're enjoying this, you bitch!'

And I'd cry, 'No! No, I'm _NOT!' _but my traitorous body was saying 'yes, oh, God, yes, I am! Please, more, please let me cum, Rosalie, _please!_' and she knew who to listen to, and who was telling her the truth, and she'd take her hand from my cunt and smear the evidence all over my face.

And get right back to work on my ass, beating it into a pulp, beating me into submission. God, she loved it when I broke, unable to take any more, but unable to stop her, just crying as she punished me for whatever reason she wanted to use to bend me over and use me like that.

She'd finish her punishment only when she was God damn good and done with me. It didn't matter how hard I screamed or cried. She finished when she was done. And I'd lie there, broken, defeated, beaten, on the kitchen table (not the big dining room table. Her family _ate _off that!), and then she'd bring me off, strapped down, so exhausted I couldn't move, so I'd just shudder, immobilized, and come in relief as fingers, or, oh, God! the privilege of her tongue, her God damn heavenly, sweet, soft, teasing tongue brought me off, and I felt the heat rising off my poor, beaten ass in waves and the tears falling from my eyes onto the kitchen table, forming a puddle by my cheek resting on the tabletop, as she eased me gently over the top then eased me all the way back down, so that I couldn't feel my arms, my legs, even the agony that was my ass. All I could feel was my heart beating in my chest, strong, slow, steady, and Rosalie's lips, kissing me there, sweetly, as she brought me back down to Earth from Heaven, so, so gently.

That's when she'd ... turn from a Holy Terror, from a terrifying monster who frankly scared the shit out of me (oh, God, sometimes literally), to ... to ... oh, God, to someone who took care of me, helpless me. And she rub my poor, chapped ass with scented oils, and untie me, checking my hands and feet, fingers and toes for circulation, and kiss my tears away, and support me, half-stumbling, up the balconied stairs to her bedroom, and make love to me, slowly, tenderly, and hold me as she fucked me, and I held her and I looked up at her as she screwed her face up and then just let go with a guttural moan as she came so hard on me as all I could do was lie there and recover as _the _Rosalie Hale came on me. And then she's slump down on top of me, breathing hard, panting, totally spent.

And I'd fall hopelessly in love with her, all over again, as she held me afterward, easing the slicked hair out of my face, sweetly kissing my forehead, holding me, tightly, into her chest.

Oh, God, I love Rosalie Hale. Oh, God, I love her so much.

And we'd fall asleep like that, in each other's arms. And it was heaven.

But it never lasted.

Eventually, like the machine she was — I swear to God she's a terminator or something! — she'd stir and wake up, and rouse me, and we'd shower, and dress, and she drove me to my home, my hovel, and I'd start to get out, easing my poor, beaten ass out of her super-comfy passenger seat, and she'd say, oh-so-casually, oh-so-careful to appear unconcerned: 'Pick you up for school tomorrow?' and I'd say, without hesitation, 'Yes,' and then 'Yes, please.'

And she'd smile at me, and I'd take that smile with me into the darkened trailer, my mom and her current boyfriend already fast asleep, and I'd fall asleep to the sound of my mom's boyfriend's snores, and Rosalie Hale's warm smile in front of my closed eyes, and a fresh pair of panties on that Rosalie gave me that night after she toweled me off from our shower.

She now kept a stash for me. For these occasions, that happened ... more than occasionally.

I'd fall asleep, and my fingers would quest down, and, yes, I found, I was 'thinking' of her again, already, so soon after she left me.

I couldn't not think of her.

Rosalie Hale was my everything.

I _tsk_ed to myself and to my errant, betraying body. I think I had run out of panties again. Rosalie took them away from me, day by day, and, well, ... sometimes I had to ... replace the ones I had been wearing during the day. And I think I had run out again.

I wonder if she'd let me ask her if she could buy me more. Sure, I could buy more myself, I suppose, but that would entail me asking my mom for money. A lot of money. Like, maybe twenty dollars. To buy panties. And then having to answer the impossible-to-answer question as to why I didn't have any anymore.

My brow furrowed, and I think I fell asleep that way: wondering how I could get more panties like the cute ones Rosalie had given me.

...

Last night, at three-fourteen am, I just woke up. Mom's boyfriend, Phil or whatever his name was, stopped snoring, thank God, not that I noticed anymore. You learn to sleep when you can and where you can, mom's double bed being right next to mine. Privacy is a privilege for people who can afford to pay rent, you see. At least her bed is against the far wall and mine against the side, so I don't have to _look _at them as they're ... you know. God, _so gross _and fuck my life.

But.

Anyway.

I woke up because I have to tell you something. Can I please, please, please, please tell you this? Because it's just so ...

It's just what _she's _like. And maybe you'll understand a little better, or maybe you'll just say I'm blind and making excuses, but whatever.

Well, it's this.

Rosalie picked out my own soap for me. You know? When she showers me?

Of course, she has her own soaps and her own scented oils and perfumes. And, oh, my fucking God, that woman knows how to make a girl lose it by walking on past you with just her scent.

Just guess what _her_ scent is? for her soaps? I'll give you three guesses, and you can choose between rose, rose, and rose, if you want options.

The fucking ego of her, I swear. She has her own God damn soaps _made_ for her and they have fucking rose petals _imbued_ in the _soap,_ and I honest-to-God shit you not. You know how in that movie _Fight Club_ there were these guys that sold soap for forty dollars a bar in specially wrapped paper and tied with twine? You know that stuff is real? With real, super-rich women who actually buy that stuff? For real. You ever meet one of those girls who buy that soap?

I have. I know one of them, very personally.

And. But. She picked out my own soap for me. My own scent. Forty dollars a bar.

And, was it the first bar, the first scent she picked? No way. No fucking way. With Rosalie Hale everything had to be fucking perfect, because if it wasn't, she wasn't happy, and when she got 'not happy' ...

Well, I know what happens when Rosalie Hale's not happy.

So for two solid weeks, day after day, she and I'd be showering, and she's unwrap a new bar with a brand-new scent and try it on me and ...

Taste me.

She'd pull me into her, and breathe me in deeply, and lick my shoulder, and ...

And she'd be like, very definitive, like: "No, no, no! No, that's not it!"

Or she'd think about it for a while, and dither, and be like ... "Well, ... hm ..."

And then toss the bar.

Just toss a bar of forty dollar soap into the waste bin in her own private bath. Just like that. Forty dollars. In the trash.

After a couple of days, I made a mistake. A big mistake. I was just hurting, looking at her just _waste all that money!_ And I was like, "It's okay, Rosalie, we can use that, really."

Right? I mean, after a few days, you think she'd make up her mind, or just settle on something, for God's sake, am I right?

She lost it. Lost her fucking mind, right there in the bath tub.

"Do you _think_ you're a slice of _fucking pumpkin pie?"_ she screamed right in my face.

The soap she had thrown had a cinnamon-pumpkin scent.

And what could I say to that? When she was right, she was right, come Hell or high water, and fuck-all what anybody else thought.

But I didn't have that insight then, did I? No. I did not.

So I said, "Well, I could ... take that home, or use it in the gym, or ..."

I used the industrial soap dispensers in the gym when I showered.

Hey, at least I got soap there. And a shower. That's more than I got at home. And with that forty dollar soap bar, so, so smooth on my skin, that would be a million, no, a _billion_ times better than that industrial soap from the dispensers in the locker room.

Right?

Wrong.

_"USED SOAP?"_ she shrieked.

I swear to God I saw murder in her eye, and I think she was actually considering doing violence to me.

I mean, like real violence. Like strangling me. Or scratching my eyes out. Or both.

The water from the shower head beaded on my skin as it washed through my freshly shampooed hair. I hung my head.

"I just ... I just ..."

Her finger gently but firmly tilted my head up so I had to look into her eyes.

Crystal blue eyes can be so terrifying, can't they? They convey no emotion; they're just two blue pools that you get lost in. There's no warmth to them, at all.

_"We_ are going to get this right," she snarled. "I swear to God, we are going to get this right if it's the last thing I do. You are _not_ going to walk around with the _wrong_ scent, Bella. I mean, seriously! The fuck!"

And I stared into her eyes, and just did not ...

I mean, there's like leagues, right? And then there's Rosalie Lillian Hale. I mean, to her, it was like life and death what _soap you used?_ I mean, honestly!

Well, after two weeks, every day trying a different bar of soap, a different scent ...

And, okay, where the hell did she get time to shop? She didn't cut classes. She was in the running to be Valedictorian against two other girls and this football linebacker, of all things, named Emmett McCarty...

But after about two weeks, she unwrapped a fresh bar — forty dollars, every day, Christ save me — and lathered it up in her wash cloth, soaped me up, pulled me into her, breathed me in so deeply, and ...

"That's it."

I could barely hear her. Her voice wasn't even a whisper: it was a sigh.

...

That was two weeks ago, but every day, after she takes me on her roller coaster ride, and then deigns to bring me back down to the Planet Earth when she God damn pleases to, she showers me, and she uses that exact same soap scent, every single time since that day.

I stirred in my bed. In the stench of our trailer park trailer, I lifted my arm up off my unwashed sheets to my nose and breathed myself in deeply.

Lavender. The very softest hint of lavender was awash in my skin.

I turned my head to my left shoulder where Rosalie's chin rested on me as she breathed me in, and I smelled the almost imperceptible scent of rose water...

And realized she was right. She was always so God-damn annoyingly, perfectly right. It did matter what a girl smelled like. No, it didn't matter. It was essential.

I closed my eyes and fell back to sleep, dreaming of walking through an elegant English garden, a gentle breeze showering me with rose petals.

...

That was last night. That's every day with Rosalie Hale. I serve her and I service her and she makes me feel like shit and then she makes me feel like I'm in heaven, and I never, _ever,_ know where I am with her, my head's always spinning so fast.

But today was ... different.

Rosalie came out from the kitchen. Oh, look, she had slipped back on her capris! I hadn't noticed, but I guess it made sense.

I mean ... I don't think she'd like all that much the wall-eyed expression on my face and the drool coming out of my mouth as my eyes fixed on that one place — what did they call it? 'Heaven's Gate' or something? — every time she'd uncross her legs to shift position on the couch.

She handed me a tall, heavy glass of diet coke, iced, and sat across from me on the couch with her own. She took a careful sip, regarded me closely and then put the glass aside on a coaster on one of her end tables.

"Drink, Bella," she ordered.

I took a small sip of the coke.

"More," she said.

She was totally unreadable.

I drank a bit more.

"Put the glass down."

I carefully placed the glass on the glass table between us.

Rosalie frowned. She picked it up, herself, and placed it besides her own. Two heavy tall glasses out of the way, out of the line of sight between us, my glass with a little more coke drunk than hers.

"Let's talk," she said.

I'm glad she had told me to put the glass down. It would've been bad, me having to clean up the mess of coke and broken glass all over the floor if the glass had been in my hands then. It would have slipped through nerveless fingers.

* * *

**A/N**: Um. Um... _GAWD! _sigh ... a little disjoint here in this chapter, time-linear-wise, but if you didn't get the time shifts, just reread the chapter (again) (because I know you will, you pervy pervs!) :p


	4. A Conversation

**Chapter Summary:** A conversation. Yeah. A conversation with Rosalie. Yeah. That'll go ... good ... I guess... yeah.

* * *

"So," Rosalie said casually, "how was your day?"

I looked at her, and then I blinked, surprised and confused.

This was the 'talk'?

Wait. This was a test. This _had _to be a test. Rosalie was gauging me. I could see it. I could see it in the absolute nonchalant air she carried that did not hide the boiling, seething energy underneath just waiting to explode all over me, just like at the door. She let me in, oh-so-politely, and I thought _well, that's nice of her ..._ and then she turns around in a thrice, slams me against it and fucks my brains out before I even knew what was happening.

I let my guard down for one second, and she pounces. Just like she looks she's ready to do right now.

_Careful, Bella,_ I thought. _Tread carefully here._

"G-good," I said cautiously.

Rosalie considered what I said, then started her dismissive _'eh'_-look with her lips.

"I guess," I added.

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

_Oops!_ I guess I shouldn't've added the 'I guess' but I just didn't know what she wanted me to say!

"'Good,' you ... 'guess,'" Rosalie said, mulling over the words. "Huh," she said, as if she understood something in what I said more than what I did, or more than what I meant.

She waited.

I waited.

The silence was oppressive, and I began to get really scared, because I saw that look on Rosalie's face that she wasn't happy how this 'talk' was turning out, but ...

I mean, _my God!_ _SHE_ wanted to have this talk, so why the hell was she ...

"Ask me how my day went, Bella."

Rosalie interrupted my thoughts mid-stream.

I blinked.

It was a command. From Rosalie.

I had to obey, not to avoid the punishment, because that looked imminent, but so that now she wouldn't totally lose her cool.

When she lost her cool, ... well, I hadn't ended up in the hospital.

Yet.

"I ..." I started weakly, and then forcefully brought myself to the here-and-now. _Obey Rosalie!_ "Um, how-did-your-day-go-today-Rosalie?" I gasped out quickly in one breath.

Rosalie regarded me steadily for a moment, then she shook her head with disappointment and _tsk_ed angrily, she looked down at her nails, critically, and then shrugged.

"Ah, it went pretty well, I suppose, all things considered." She emphasized the last three words slightly.

But a slight emphasis from Rosalie spoke volumes. She didn't emphasize anything without a reason, I've come to find. She always said what she meant, and if you didn't catch her meaning, the first time, then you'd catch it from her hand as she drilled it into until she was satisfied you got it.

Loud and clear.

She looked up from her nails, then her eyes bore into mine, and she smirked cruelly.

_"I ... guess."_

Sarcasm was dripping from her voice as she twisted my own words into a knife to stab me right in the gut.

"Um ..." I said helplessly. "Um..."

God! I so wanted this cruel game to end, but I _had_ to play it. There was no escaping her stare. I was in her lair, in her easy chair, surrounded by everything hers. There was no direction I could run to, nor no way I could run from her. I was rooted to the spot.

It was like ...

Well, it was like, in fact, as if she had strapped me down to this chair, so all I could do was squirm under her torture, not knowing what to do or what to say, only knowing that anything I did do or say would be the wrong thing.

No. It wasn't _'l__ike'_ that. It actually was happening.

God, can this please, please stop, and she just drop all pretense, scream, grab me roughly and throw me to the ground and start spanking me? At least that way I knew where I stood, and I knew that it had to end, even though I knew it always went on longer than I could stand, but at least I knew what to do then.

Scream, scream for it to stop, because that was the one sure thing: my agony, and that it would stop eventually, ... or that I would and then she would just tire of beating my lifeless shell.

But the game _had_ to be played. Because I knew pain. I knew it intimately. I'd know it soon, and every single time pain and I met, I went away and pain stayed and stayed and stayed.

And, but ... _knowing_ pain was one thing. Feeling it, all over your body, _inside_ your very being, was something else.

Pain and I had a more than a nodding acquaintance, but the longer Rosalie and I stayed in this surreal game meant the longer Pain and I _didn't_ have an intimate little chat.

And that was fine in my book.

"Um ..." I was grasping at straws now. _Please, o God, please help me!_

Why did God never answer my prayers when I needed them to be answered? Was it because I was poor? Did God give Rosalie everything and so had nothing left for me? Because He loved her more? Because she was beautiful and smart?

"Why do you say 'all things considered,' Rosalie?" I asked quickly.

She emphasized those words for a reason. She said them. She meant me to hear them and know what they meant. What 'all things considered' made her day 'pretty well' and not 'really well' or something else?

Rosalie smirked, pleased, and the demon behind her eyes receded, just a little bit.

"Well,..." she began lightly, "let's consider some things, Bella ... like you."

She glared pointedly at me.

I gulped.

"What's going on with you, Bella?" Rosalie asked quietly.

"Well," I said carefully, not knowing how she wanted me to answer, "I... I did my ... homework ..." I started slowly, but then added quickly, because I saw her face harden as I spoke: "while, you know, I was waiting for..."

"No," Rosalie silenced me as she cut in sharply, shaking her head. "You didn't get what I was saying, so let me rephrase..."

She looked over to the cokes, but then I guess she decided not to take a sip.

She glared back at me and snarled: "What _the fuck_ is _going on_ with you, Bella, for _fuck's sake?"_

"Um, ..." I blanched under her fury, "Um, I don't know what you mean, Rosalie, I ..."

"Yes, you do," she said angrily. "Yes, you _so_ do, Bella, don't play dumb with me! You _know_ how much that pisses me off, and I ..."

She broke off, just as quickly, looking away, her face a mask of contained fury, her jaw working.

"Please, Rosalie," I begged, trying to stem the tide of anger that I really had no idea what caused it, "please, I really, really don't know. And, I'm sorry. Please. I just ..."

_"Shh!"_ she hissed, glaring at me, then turning her head aside again, looking off into the void.

She drummed her fingers on her arm with a irritated air.

I looked at her, nervously, unable to defend myself anymore against whatever wrongs she was imagining I had done, so I just sat and waited, shaken, a gagged girl in the stockade, waiting to be dragged off to the gallows.

"You 'really, really' don't know, do you?" she demanded.

There was only one answer to that question. I didn't dare breathe. Anything I said now would only make her anger burn all the more hotly. Silence was the only thing saving my bacon now.

"Then let me explain it to, you, Bella," Rosalie said coldly.

Then:

"Fetch me the paddle."

I went white and involuntarily cringed.

_Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, the paddle!_

But I hopped up right away. The paddle hurt like a motherfucker, but if I didn't do as she said and ... how did she say it? ... 'expeditiously,' she would get _really_ angry, and my ass would be just the first to suffer from her wrath.

Ever have your pussy spanked? With cooking utensils?

And, if she were to turn me over like that, to lay into my cunt with the paddle, as I wailed for her to stop ...

She would stop. And start somewhere else. Some_wheres_ elses.

God, my tits already stung in anticipatory agony.

I _ran_ downstairs to the Hale's rec room and got her ping-pong paddle. Yes, she plays ping-pong, or 'table tennis' as she calls it. Yes, her fast serve ... you can't even _see _the ball, much less return the serve. She won game after game against me just with her serving the ball.

I had gotten better and better at playing ping-pong, playing with Rosalie over the past month, nearly every day.

I haven't won one game yet. Hell, I was happy when I scored a point in a game at all.

She was happy for me, too. Sometimes.

She wasn't happy now, and yes, Rosalie Hale has a strong fast serve, coming from a very strong right arm.

Her left arm was no slouch either, these days, come to find.

I ran back up the stairs, fast as I could, but being careful not to trip. Rosalie hated it when I hurt myself ... before she could. She _really_ hated that.

"Here," I gasped out of breath, panting, "here's the paddle, Rosalie."

She took it from me, and laid it carefully on the couch by her left side.

"Strip."

I was out of my clothes in three seconds flat.

Rosalie looked pointedly at my feet. "All the way," she said annoyed.

I sat on the floor, fast, and undid my shoe laces and pulled off my socks.

She shifted position on the couch, from her legs under her to bring her feet to rest on the floor.

She looked at me, waving to her lap.

I hopped on, draping myself over her knee, but my head ... it would have rested on the paddle if I let my head down onto the couch, so I propped my head up with my neck. I think Rosalie thought it unseemly for a girl to hold her head up with her hands.

I had no idea how heavy my head was. I found out after a few seconds ... that is: a few eternities of Rosalie's silence.

And my head seemed to get heavier and heavier.

But if I rested my head on the paddle, or, God forbid, _moved_ the paddle, Rosalie might think I was being duplicitous or rebellious, and would then feel duty bound to beat that out of me, too.

If you're thinking that my running about, obeying her every whim, was me aiding her? abetting her?

Well, you're fucking right.

But you say that again after you've survived a week of her whippings, learning very quickly how disobedience or dragging feet only infuriates her more.

I've survived a month of that.

You fucking bet I snapped to when she gave me an order. _Damn _straight, and save me, God, from Rosalie's fury.

God _never_ answers my prayers, but I've prayed more to God under Rosalie's ... 'influence,' than I've prayed my _entire life!_

I shit you not.

Rosalie gently brushed her hand past my face, grasping the paddle, but there was no gentleness in her hand as it brushed past me, and her fingers were white as she grasped the paddle.

She brought it to my face.

"Kiss the paddle, Bella."

I whimpered, but I kissed it.

God, this was going to be bad. I rarely kissed the punishing tool or hand. When I did, what followed was always a real beating, so now I have it hardwired in my mind that gesture foretells my doom.

I have to kiss the thing that's going to beat me within an inch of my life, because we are going to be really, really intimate for a really, really long time.

Rosalie brought the paddle up around my face, gracefully with an economy of motion of her arm, brushing my hair back over my ear.

The she lifted the paddle up...

I sucked in a breath, preparing myself for the only thing I could (involuntarily) do: scream.

... and she placed it on the small of my back.

I didn't know what to do. I held my breath, but that only lasted a second, so I started panting, like an animal, not even daring to whimper in fear.

"Baby, ..." Rosalie said calmly.

She rested her right hand on my rump, almost cupping it, almost ... affectionately.

Her left hand came to rest on my head, and she applied gentle pressure, until my head was resting on the cushion.

"Look at me," she said quietly.

I looked. My head was turned toward the back of the couch, but I almost had to strain to see her face out of the corner of my eye.

It was impassive, and she wasn't looking back at me, she was looking at my backside.

She started stroking my butt, ... almost absentmindedly, like.

She blew out a long sigh.

"Bella Swan," she said gravely, "are you trying to make a liar out of me?"

"I..." I answered quickly, fearfully, but totally confused. "No, Rosalie, no! I ..."

"Shh! Shh, shh!" Rosalie hushed.

My breaths came in shallow, tightly-closed mouthed gasps. I shut up, ... boy, did I ever.

Rosalie continued lightly stroking my butt, and, I swear, if she kept doing that, she was going to drive me to distraction. It was so ... soft, so ...

I don't know what it was, it was ... it just didn't match her getting her righteousness on for a hard workout on me, so I was just utterly befuddled by it.

"I promised myself," Rosalie said, explaining, "I promised myself, Bella, that today I wouldn't have to whip you, but you're making a liar out of me, and I don't like it. Not at all."

I concentrated on breathing, and looking at her impassive face, trying to understand her words so I could say the right things, the things she needed to hear, and at precisely the right time.

That's the only way I could get out of this. She wanted to keep her word to herself, which I found out just now, and I was very willing to comply.

Whatever she needed not to whip me with that paddle, I swear I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Rosalie reached over to the cokes and took a long, slow, leisurely sip.

Water droplets had formed on the glass, condensation, and the dripped down onto my back. Little tiny droplets of almost ice.

I tried not to wince each time.

Then ... "Ahhhhh!" I cried, as Rosalie rested the glass on my shoulder blade.

The cold knifed into me and through me, radiating out from my shoulder blade, dimpling my skin, then penetrating into my back, right through to my chest and up and down my spine. My neck almost spasmed, and I so desperately wanted to squirm away, but if that soda spilt on me ... then from there onto her white tee shirt, soaking through, then onto her capris ...?

And, oh, God, onto the couch?

I could not imagine the consequences.

I tried, God, I tried not to squirm. I held my breath and bore down hard.

She lifted up the glass and took another sip, and I braced for the pain of its return. Would she put it back where the skin had numbed? No, only if she were being generous. She'd be sure to put it somewhere unexpected so it hurt double: the pain and the surprise.

She placed the glass carefully back onto the end table. I hear the _click_ of glass going onto glass.

Wait. Not onto the coaster?

Why was she drinking from my glass? She was always so meticulous about everything!

I looked up at her unreadable face, and dared small sips of air through my nose.

"I told you," she said, "that I wanted to talk with you, but all I got from you is static the whole time, and I ..."

She looked down at me, and brought her left hand and rested it on my head, brushing my hair, partially obstructing my view.

"I mean," she continued, sounding frustrated. "What's the point of having a talk when all you're doing is just feeding me bullshit, Bella! I mean, seriously. 'Good, I guess'? Your day was either good or bad, there's no guesswork there, and who gives a fuck about that? What the fuck does that tell me about your day? Not a fucking thing! 'How was your day?' 'Good'? Fucking 'good,' Bella? Well, that's just fucking great."

She paused and looked away.

"So, that's one thing, considering. Considering you didn't tell me _shit_ about your day, when I fucking extend myself to ask you about it. I try to have a conversation with you, and you just ..."

Her face hardened, and she picked up the paddle.

I couldn't help it. I whined. I whined like a bitch being quartered alive.

Rosalie looked at the paddle, critically, then looked down at me.

"Do you know why I love beating the shit out of you, Bella?" Rosalie ask seriously.

_Because you're a God damn sadistic bitch, Rosalie Hale! _I screamed in my head.

I bit my lip hard and whimpered, praying she didn't see that thought in my head.

She smiled down at me, cruelly.

She saw.

Fuck, oh, fucking fuck, I'm so fucking screwed.

She leaned over me, a little bit, and almost leered.

"Bella, ..." she cooed, smiling evilly.

"Do you know why you love getting the shit beat out of you?" she demanded.

"I don't, Rosalie!" I cried. "I don't! I don't! I honest-to-God really don't, Rosalie, I swear!"

Her lips twitched.

"That wasn't the question, Bella," she said calmly, but a rumble of power vibrating in her voice. "Answer the question put to you. Do you know. Why. You like getting the shit. Beat out of you, Bella. Swan."

"I..." I said as fast as I could, with all the feeling I could muster. "No, Rosalie. Please, no. Just please, no."

She frowned. "'No' as in, 'no,' you don't understand?"

I was trembling in her lap, vibrating in place. My legs were twitching, and I had to fight to still them. They wanted to run away.

But there was no running away.

I knew. When I ran away, it only made things worse when she caught up to me and tackled me, continuing where we fell, like on the graveled cemented area by the in-ground swimming pool in her back yard.

That _really _hurt, being punished on both sides of my body at the same time, the gravel digging into my front side, all of it, and her folded belt on my back side ... _all_ of it, her foot on my neck, pinning me into the cementy-gravelly-rough ground.

"Let me rephrase," she said coolly. "Why, Bella, do you love getting the shit beat out of you?"

She waited.

"No answer?" she asked as she brushed the paddle up and down my back.

I shivered wherever it touched me.

"You want me to give you a hint?" she offered.

I looked up at her helplessly.

"Hint?" she said, sweetly. "Yes, or no?"

"Yes, Rosalie, please!" I begged.

She smiled down at me.

She almost looked tender.

She placed the paddle back down on my lower back.

"When I'm beating you, Bella," she said, "are your words thought out and guessed over?"

"Hm?" she prompted.

"No, Rosalie ..." I began.

"No, they're not," she continued. "They're the God's-honest truth. 'Rosalie, please! Stop! I'm begging you!' and then you get to the real truth, Bella. Do you know what the real truth is?"

I was quaking. I tried to breath. It came in stuttered gasps.

She smiled and patted my head affectionately.

"The real truth, Bella," she said dispassionately. "Is the language without words. When you've reached that point when all you're doing is screaming, when all you can do is form that one, simple, beautiful sound, Bella ..."

Her face glowed.

"I hear it," she said. "You're being totally honest with me then, sweetie, and ... I love that. I love your honesty. Your truth. Your purity, Bella. You're pure then, and I so love that."

She looked down at me, the picture of utter peace.

"And you love that, too, Bella."

I looked up at a monster.

She wasn't a human being. She ... oh, my God, she really was a sadist. She didn't have a heart. She tortured me because she loved it, and she said I loved it, too?

"No, Rosalie!" I said. "No! I don't ..."

"Shh," she chided gently.

"No!" I shouted, "I'm not ..."

"Bella ..." Rosalie scolded.

I whimpered. "Please," I begged. "Please..."

"Shh, sweetie." She said. "It's just like that. It's like that every time. First, you deny. You resist. Then you beg. Then you scream, and then ..."

She smiled down at me. "Then, tell me what happens next, Bella."

"I..." I said.

"No," she cut me off. "Tell me what happens next, Bella."

"I..." I tried again, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to stop this madness.

"No!" she cut in again, forcefully.

I closed my mouth.

"What happens next, Bella, is that you can't fight it any more, sweetie, right?" she demanded.

I nodded my head, helplessly, pleading with my eyes.

"You can't fight it any more, because you know why?" she asked.

Then she answered her own question: "Because then, there's nothing left in you to fight. And ... so, what's left, Bella, when there's nothing in you left?"

I looked up at her. My neck was really hurting, by the way. I told it to shut the fuck up with its complaints. I had other worries right now.

I shook my head helplessly.

"Guess, Bella," she commanded.

"Um, ... nothing?" I tried.

She shook her head, disappointed. "No, baby."

"I don't know, Rosalie!" I wailed. "Please, I don't know!"

"I know you don't, baby. You know why? Because the only thing left when there's nothing left in you is ... you. And all this shit you put up and ... _ahhh!"_

She waved in disgust.

"All that goes away, and there's just you. Only you. And when I see you, baby..."

She broke off.

"God!" she exclaimed. "God, you're so beautiful! So sweet, so real. You're like ... you're like a fetus in the womb, so innocent and pure, so defenseless, so utterly trusting. You're like a God-damn angel, Bella, I swear to God. I swear I think I see your wings coming out of your shoulder blades like beams of light, Bella, I swear I see them. I see you, Bella. I see you, and I hold you, right there!"

Her right hand cupped my buttock.

"And I bring you right up to heaven, and it takes no effort, because you're already there, baby, you are ... you are ... you aren't anything other than you, and you are just so real and present, that you don't even fucking know yourself. But I do. I see you. And after you slide back down, you're still present. I see it in your eyes. You're just so perfectly ... you. And I take you in my arms, and I love you, and you love me back, unreservedly, unhurriedly, un-... fuck, Bella, un-everything. You just love me, and I love you and there is absolutely _nothing_ between us then. No bullshit, no crap, no guessing and thinking and worrying, just nothing but me and you. Just ..."

She sighed.

And I heard sadness, ... I heard anguish and despair in her sigh.

She looked away from me again, sadly.

Then she picked up the paddle.

I sucked in a gasp of air. I'm sorry, but I can't help it! I'm so terrified of what she _could_ do with it because I so know what she _can_ do and actually does with it.

"Now," she said in more businesslike tones. "Let's try this again, okay, Bella? We're going to have a conversation, and you, my dear, are going to try to be totally and completely honest with me, or, ... fuck it, and fuck the 'totally and completely' part, because you're nowhere close to that, my little fucked-up angel, so just try to be honest with me, and I'm going to try to keep my word to myself and not be frustrated with your poor, pitiful little attempt at honesty, and _not_ beat the shit out of you until you actually do become satisfactorily honest with me and until you do become you and not all this crap you layer around yourself, huh? Does that sound good, Bella?"

"Yes," I said quickly. "Yes, Rosalie, please, I'll ..."

"Ah-ah!" she scolded, silencing me. "You're trying too hard already. Try not to try, okay, Bella?"

I looked up at her in utter confusion.

She shook her head.

"No, baby," Rosalie said gently, "just let it all go. Just ... be, okay?"

I looked up at her helplessly, terror filling my body.

I didn't know what she wanted. And her cryptic, okay, _bullshit!_ wasn't helping me at all.

"Just try, baby, but don't force it. Can you just try?" she said quietly.

There was ... almost ... desperation in her voice.

God! My neck hurt. "I can ... try, Rosalie," I said hesitantly. "I can ... try."

I didn't know if I'd succeed or not, by her standards, but I could try, at least. I could try whatever it was she wanted me to do.

It sounded a whole lot better than the alternative, even if there were or weren't imagined angelic wings on my shoulders at the end of it.

God help me, I was scared, not that I didn't have any idea what she was talking about, ... no, I was scared that maybe I did know, and did feel what she was describing, and that terrified me: that the insanity she was saying made some kind of odd sense to me ... in a way.

I knew, from my dark, darkest trip down into nothingness of despair years ago: when insanity started making sense, ...

Well, that was very, very bad. And I was scared that if she were insane, and I started seeing what she saw, there'd be no hope for either of us.

_Some_body had to be the sane one in this relationship, fucked-up as it was, and it sure as hell wasn't her, the one with all the power... and the paddle.

She smiled down at me beatifically, and I wondered if she were mistaken as to who was the angel.

She was a blonde, after all.

"Okay, then," she said sweetly, "let's try."

She brought the paddle back down by my face.

"Kiss the paddle, Bella," she ordered.

I kissed it.

Very carefully.

Rosalie could turn vicious in a heartbeat, _especially_ when I dropped my guard and hoped or expected kindness or leniency. Like right now.

"Get up," she said.

I started to get off her.

"No, no," she corrected, "sit on my lap, baby. You were too, too far away in that easy chair, stewing by yourself. I want you right here, right on my lap, okay?"

She didn't have to say the 'okay.'

"Okay," I agreed meekly. Then, in clarification, "Facing you?"

"Of course."

I sat on her lap, my legs splayed under me.

I ...

I looked _down_ at her face. That felt weird. It felt so ... _wrong_ somehow. Like she _had_ to be looking down at me, always, or else the world would end or something.

Rosalie flicked with her hands.

"Arms up. Hands behind your neck, fingers interlocked. Nothing between us, Bella: no shit. Just you and me, got it?"

"Yes." I said, and obeyed.

My back automatically arched to accommodate my position, causing my tits to jut out, almost into her face.

I blushed. I didn't intent that, at all, and I only got further embarrassed when my nipples hardened to pebbles at my noticing my own God damned body and its reaction, for God's sake.

Rosalie didn't look (slightly) down. But I sensed she didn't need to, because I sensed she knew every curve, every line of my body.

She knew me to my guts.

"Now," she said. "Thirsty?"

"Yes, please, a little," I said.

"Okay," she said, and reached out, unerringly grabbing my glass, and bringing it to my lips, feeding me the coke from her hand.

"Hm," she said disapprovingly. "Straws next time. Remember that."

"Yes," I said.

It wasn't enough for her. "You have to anticipate everything, Bella. You have to know when you get me a coke that I may have to be doing this, so next time bring straws, too."

Then she tilted the glass, wetting my lips with the coke so I could slurp it.

My eyes widened.

But I drank and drank, tiny-tiny sips at a time, until I had had enough.

Actually, I was quite thirsty ... I finished about two-thirds of the glass.

Being scared out of your mind is thirsty work, I guess.

Rosalie put the glass back onto the end table.

"Now," she said. "Complete honesty."

"Yes," I said.

"So what was that look for?" she demanded.

My breath caught in my throat. "Well, ..." I said quickly.

She shook her head.

I stilled myself.

I still can't get over me looking down at Rosalie Hale. It's fucking up my mind. It almost makes me think ...

Nah.

"Bella," she said, "there is no 'well' in complete honesty. So. The look."

"Well, ..." I said. Then ...

"Oh, shit! I'm sorry, Rosalie, I ..."

"Shh!"

I bit my lip.

Rosalie smirked up at me. "You can't do it, can you, Bella? You can't even say one honest thing unless I'm tearing it out of your throat. You're sitting on my lap, hands behind your head, ... Bella, your body's totally open to me, but you can't even open your mouth, you can't open your heart to me and just be really, ... fucking ... honest with me, just once!"

"Rosalie," I said, "I'm trying! Please!"

Her lip twitched. "Yeah, okay," she said, disappointed, but it wasn't okay.

"There's that look again!" she exclaimed.

_"WHAT LOOK!" _I shouted.

She smiled. "Finally, a little hint of the real you, Bella. Good! Good!"

I sighed in exasperation.

Rosalie reached up and brushed a lock of my hair out of my face. "It's hard, baby, I know. Being brutally honest with someone else means you have to be ... well, brutally honest with yourself, and you've never had to do that, have you?"

"Rosalie," I _tsk_ed, "you don't know a thing about me, really."

"Oh-hohoho, Bella," Rosalie chuckled ... it sounded more like a predatory cough ... like how the lions in the zoo sounded when they marked their territories. "Don't you even _think _about trying to take me on now, sister! You are _way_ out of your depth, and you know it!"

Yes, I knew it, and she God damn knew I did.

But what did she want me to do? Roll over and piss myself, for God's sake?

"That look again," she said quietly.

"Aaaahhh!" I screamed in frustration.

Rosalie smirked up at me.

Have you heard of 'topping from the bottom'? Is that a term? Rosalie was ... well, _I_ was on top of Rosalie; that is to say, I was sitting on top of her, but she was just so, so on top of everything, really, her game, me, my mind ... my sanity.

It was so frustrating, and so weird, looking down at someone who so utterly dominated me.

I panted, then tried to calm myself. "I just ..." I breathed. "It's just that I've been through some things, Rosalie, and I really had to get real with myself, and ... you don't know me. You don't. You just know me ... now," I finished weakly.

Rosalie looked at me consideringly. "So ..."

Then she shook her head. "No, nice try, though, Bella. I know you _way_ more than you know yourself. _Way."_

"Whatever," I mumbled petulantly.

"Oh?" she said. "Really? Still want to tumble with the big girls, do you?"

I tried looking away.

"Bella, ..." Rosalie reached out with her hand and turned my face to hers. "Complete honesty, remember?"

I looked down in to her pure blue ... honest ... eyes. "Okay," I relented.

She smiled. "So, okay!"

"So, ..." she said.

"So?" I said carefully.

"Are you wet?"

"GAH!" I exclaimed, taken completely off-guard.

"It's a question, Bella, yes, or no."

I wondered when I would get to ask the questions around here.

"Can I have a penny for every time you get that look?" she smirked.

I sighed.

"So...?" she pursued.

"Um ... I don't know," I said, embarrassed.

"Honesty, Bella," Rosalie chided.

"I honestly don't know, Rosalie!" _Jeez!_

"I say you're wet, Bella, because I know you. I know you better than you do. And you say, 'duh, I honestly don't know, Woswawee!' because, and, yes, it is true, because you honestly haven't the faintest clue who and what you are. So, let's check. Hands. On my shoulders. Now."

When she snapped an order like that, my body obeyed without thinking.

She had me that well-trained. That well-...

I don't know what 'well-'ed, but she had me, completely. Down to my toes.

My hands were on her shoulders somehow. I didn't put them there. My body must have, but I didn't.

"Now stand up. Yes," she said impatiently, "on the couch. Right now, Bella, just push yourself up."

I had to push hard on her shoulders to get myself up. She didn't move a muscle. It was like I were nothing to her.

"Now," she said.

And she leaned her face forward, and, ...

_Oh, God, oh, please don't be wet! Please, please, don't be wet!_ I begged.

You remember how God never answers my prayers.

Rosalie kissed my pussy.

She sighed happily. "God, Bella! Your cunt is ... _dripping!"_

Fuck. My face burned with embarrassment.

She kissed me there again. And again. And ...

Again.

I shuddered and sighed.

Then she started to suck, very, very gently.

_Oh, God!_

I was whimpering as she sucked.

She sighed and leaned back.

God, I wanted to lean forward when she pulled away. God, did I want that.

She smiled way, way up at me. "I can taste me on you, sweetie. C'mon back down here."

I sighed, and her hands supported me gently back down into her lap.

"Bella, ..."

"What?" I said defensively. Her tone was reproachful.

"My ... shirt!"

I looked down.

O-god-o-fuck!

I sighed. My cunt drew a wet line down her tee-shirt.

"Oh, my God! Rosalie!" I exclaimed, "I am so sorry!"

She chuckled. _"Some_body is doing more laundry, _by hand, _tonight, isn't she?"

"Yes," I said sadly.

"... and guess who's leaking onto my capris right now, you dirty slut, huh?"

"Oh," I said, "um..."

"You blush so prettily, Bella," Rosalie said, pleased as punch.

I also blush ... harder, when I'm told I blush so prettily.

"So, Bella, are you wet?" Rosalie demanded.

"Yes," I whispered, ashamed.

"Yeah, but I knew that _way_ before you did, my sweet, didn't I?"

There was no wiping that smug expression off her face.

"Bella, ..." she smiled. "Undo my pants. You're getting them wet, and I'm finding them constricting, huh?"

I tried not to look her in the eye. I brought my hands down and unbuttoned her capris.

"Thank you," she said. "Now, lift up my shirt, baby, okay? and press your sweet, little, wet cunt against my tummy."

My face was getting hotter and hotter, but I had to obey her, and ... well ...

... maybe I didn't want to disobey her. I don't know.

I groaned when my cunt touched her stomach.

"Good girl," she cooed. "Good, good girl."

I sighed.

"You have some stubble," she remarked.

"Oh, um ..."

"It tickles a little."

"I..."

"It's not a question, Bella," Rosalie frowned.

Oops. I'm not supposed to talk unless she wants me to.

"I don't like it," she said. "But don't worry, honey, we'll take care of that later. Now, though, I want you to press in harder, and if you feel yourself slacking off, press in again, okay, sweetie? I want you to concentrate all your feeling right down into your cunt, okay?"

"Okay," I gasped.

Some orders were okay to follow.

"Rub against me as much and as hard as you like, but do not cum, you got me? You're not to cum without my permission, ever, am I clear?"

She always was. Very clear about that. "Yes," I said.

My eyes were losing focus.

"Good girl," she said, pleased.

My hips ... they ... they, well, they became alive, somehow, on their own, and they started to jog against Rosalie's belly.

She smiled sweetly up at me.

"Hands behind your neck, Bella, fingers interlaced."

"Yes," I said and obeyed.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

It was actually kind of hard to do. I had to tilt down and she had to lean and tilt up. If I had my hands, I could have pulled her right up into me.

We kissed, softly, as my hips pushed and pushed me against her.

She broke off the kiss, and I sighed and straightened up. If I had my hands, I wouldn't have let her break away.

She always had such complete, tight control over herself and everything around her.

She leaned right back in and sucked in my right nipple.

_"Oh, God!" _I groaned. I felt my eyes squeeze shut and I bore down, hard, not to cum, but to _not_ cum.

God, this was hard. Unbearable, almost. Like torture. Like sweet, exquisite torture.

She sucked as she pulled back and my tit lost the battle quickly, but it was excruciating how much pleasure shot through me. It was like lightning bolts radiating from my tit all over my body.

And the lightning rod was my cunt.

_"Rosalieeeee..." _I cried desperately.

"No, Bella," Rosalie said sternly. "No cumming, you hear me! No-no, cum-cum, you-you, you got that?"

I whined.

"Slow it down, Bella," she commanded. "Slow it down!"

"I..."

"Stop! Bella! Stop right now!"

_"Urrrhhh!"_ I cried, clamping down on myself hard, stopping.

I don't know what would have been more painful: me cumming right now, or me stopping.

But I stopped.

I drew in a ragged breath, but I couldn't slump over. My hands, nailed, as it were, behind my back, kept me upright.

God, this was agonizing: being erect when I wanted to topple, and wanting to cum, when the orgasm was now three million miles away. It's been only just two seconds now, but the empty ache filled my body painfully.

"Bella," Rosalie said. "Listen to me, and listen to me well."

"Yes," I said sadly.

"Earlier I asked what the fuck was up with you. Now I'll clarify that question. You listening?"

"Yes," I whispered.

She reached over and drank a bit of her coke. She didn't seem to notice the glass brush against the tit she has just sucked.

But I know she did.

God! That hurt! The cold lanced into my nipple and circled my chest to sting me right between my shoulder blades.

I held in my groan.

Rosalie doesn't like melodramatics.

She put the glass back.

"So," she said. "You did your homework then?"

"Yes, I did it while you were in cheerleading practice."

"Hm, yes. Well, we'll see about that later."

Rosalie was always checking my homework and then my grades. She was simply furious that I was a low-C student, she said she didn't abide stupid people, and I wasn't stupid, so I'd better step up my game, or there'd be hell to pay.

And did she ever mean it.

"Where did you do your homework?"

"... in the hall." I said. The library was locked after school. The librarian had a life, unlike some people.

"Uh-huh."

I reopened my eyes. My breathing had returned to normal, but the empty ache was still there, even though dulled.

"You did it in the darkened hallway, not in the gym?" she asked.

"No," I said, shaking my head.

"Why not?"

"... I ... well, I wouldn't be able to do it there."

"Why not?"

"Too many distractions. Too much noise and stuff." I said.

I need quiet to do my homework.

"'Stuff.'" Rosalie said noncommittally. "Stuff like what?"

"Well, I don't know, Rosalie, ..." I began.

"Yes, you do."

I sighed.

"Stuff like what?" she demanded.

"Well, like, people like looking at me. I mean, like, 'who's the weird girl in the bleachers?' 'Why's she at cheerleader practice doing her homework?' 'Doesn't she have a life?' 'Loser!' ... and ... stuff."

"Stuff, again," Rosalie commented.

"Yeah, ..." and I looked away again.

Her hand pulled my chin around. "Stuff ... like ... what?"

"Well, _jeez! Rosalie!_ How can I do my homework when you're out there and doing all those ... all that stuff and I just ..."

_Oh, God!_

"I just ..." Oh, God, _shut up, Bella!_

"So, ..." Rosalie said slowly, smirking, "you wouldn't be able to do your homework because you'd be distracted by sweet, little me in my tight leotards practicing my hot, sexy cheers for all the world to see, huh, Bella?"

"Uh ..." I swallowed.

"'Stuff,' huh?" Rosalie asked mockingly.

"Um."

"And you're worried about what the other girls might be saying about you?" she asked.

"Well, ..." I said.

"Cunt. Tummy. Now."

It was like a magnet.

"Nice and slow, Bella."

I sighed a blissful sigh. _This_ was the emptiness. _This_ was what had been lacking.

"Nice and slow, baby," she repeated. "Now, yes, or no."

What had she asked before?

It was so hard to remember.

The feeling? It was so yummy! Not urgent ... it was ... yummy.

Oh, other girls. Who the fuck cared about other girls and what they thought?

I did.

"Yeahhhhh..." I sighed blissfully, caring _very much_ about one girl, and what she thought.

"Well, guess what, Bella, they're talking about you _a lot!"_

My hips slowed.

"They are?"

"Yes, they are."

"Why?"

"Bella," Rosalie said, "doing your homework in a darkened hallway? That's just fucking creepy, okay. Are you some kinda ghoul or something? You sure look it! When's the last that skin's seen some sun? I mean, really!"

Rosalie herself was sort of English pasty-pale. She had a tanning streak for a while, but then all the other kids copied her, because they wanted to be glamorous and have tons of boys ogling them and following them around and asking them to prom, too, so she got bored of it and her skin paled again.

Not sickly pale like me, though.

"Um..."

At the same time, she said, "And, _AND!_ I told you, Bella. I. Told. You. I told you you could hang with me but none of that fangirl shit, but what have you done every day at lunch? Huh?"

"Uh, ..." I said, blushing. "I don't know, Rosalie. What did I do?"

My hips were still.

Rosalie pulled me by my butt more tightly into her.

I sighed, but sadly.

"This is what you've done, Bella," she said.

She leaned back a little, then her eyes got a faraway, adoring look to them. She sighed, longingly and uttered: "Oh! Isn't that Rosalie Hale just ... so ... _dreamy?"_

"Rosalie!" I said shocked, "I never, _ever, _said that! I swear!"

"Bella," she sighed, "you didn't have to. It's written all over your face, every day!"

"Oh, I ..."

"Girls are talking." Rosalie said.

"Oh."

"Lots of girls."

"Ah..."

"Particularly Jessica and Lauren."

She waited.

"You know what they're saying about you, Bella?"

I shook my head.

"Yes, you do."

How come Rosalie always has to know what I know when I don't know it?

"They're throwing the 'L'-word around, Bella."

"The ..." I stuttered, "the ... 'L'-... word?"

"Uh-huh," she said looking up at me.

I was absolutely frozen. She can't know. She's not supposed to know.

"'Hey, Rosalie!" Rosalie's imitation of Jessica's voice was pitch-perfect. "Here comes your lesbian gurrrllfrieeennn, hahahaha!'"

"Oh!" I said, blushing. I was shocked, but relieved. At least she hadn't thought ...

"Why 'oh!' Bella? Were you thinking a different 'L'-word?"

"Um, ..." I said quickly, "uhm, no! No, I wasn't. No. I ..."

_SHUT UP, BELLA! FOR FUCK'S SAKE!_

"Bella," Rosalie said quietly, pushing me off her tummy, but not off her lap, "hand me the paddle."

I whimpered.

I reached down and picked up the thing and handed it to Rosalie.

My whole body _was_ relaxed not two minutes ago.

That was two minutes ago. Now I was so tight, I was vibrating in place.

I was so tight, I think I felt the coke squeezing out of my pores.

"Kiss the paddle, Bella," Rosalie said, and brought it up to my face.

I kissed it, trembling.

She flipped it. "Now the edge."

Oh, God.

I was crying now. I kissed the edge.

She had never used the edge. If she used that on my pussy, I think she'd break through my pelvic bone. If she used it on my ass, she'd rupture my sphincter. If she used the edge on my back, she'd sever my spine.

Rosalie Hale didn't hold back.

"Bella," Rosalie said quietly. "What... is ... up?"

I was shaking like a leaf on her lap.

I was going to die. Very, very painfully.

"Nuuu-nuuu-nuuuhh-nuuuttinnn-n-n-n-n," I whimpered.

She would kill me, but she would never, never know.

And the look in her eye?

She was gonna kill me.

The tears were falling freely.

"Bella," Rosalie said very, very quietly, a warning clarion ringing in her voice. "Do you love me? Yes. Or no."

I looked away quickly, shaking my head so vigorously that I thought it might fall off and save her the trouble.

"Bella,"

_SMACK!_

I screamed.

And I almost fainted.

I didn't feel anything. She must have hit me so hard that it went beyond pain, like, you know, when a car severs a person in half so fast they don't even know what hit them? And they have this dumb look on their face as they die, like: 'What just happened?'

I looked around in confusion with that dumb look on my face.

Rosalie had hit her own hand.

Hard.

"Bella," she said calmly.

She had my attention.

She grasped my chin, firmly.

"Look me in the eye."

I couldn't look away. I _had _to. God, please, I _had_ to.

I couldn't.

"Do you love me?"

"I...I...nnn...nnn..nnn...nnn,"

Please, God, please, God, _opleaseopleaseopleaseGod._

"Bella?" Rosalie said. "Say it, and tell me the truth. Do you love me? Yes, or no?"

"I..."

"That's not the answer, Bella..." Rosalie said softly.

"I..."

She was _smiling _at me.

_Oh, God! She was smiling at me!_

My head fell into hers.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Ye..nnn... ye...nnnn-n-nn..."

I couldn't breathe.

"Bella?" she asked kindly, patiently.

_"OH! GOD!" _I screamed.

"Do you love me, Bella?" Rosalie asked.

"I..."

"Last time."

"Yes."

Wait.

What did I just say?

"Uh ..." I said quickly. "Uh, ... I ... I gotta ..."

"Bella."

Rosalie waited, patiently.

I tried to look anywhere but at her.

Finally, there was nowhere to look.

There was only her.

Um. So...

Does anyone have something I can rip my eyes out with? Trying not to see out of them just so isn't working right now, and ...

Well, anyway.

I hung my head. "Well, ... anyway," I said in defeat.

"So," Rosalie said, looking up into me.

See, hanging your head because you're shy? It doesn't work when you're sitting on somebody's lap. Kinda has the opposite effect.

"You love me," she said.

It was a declarative statement, not a question.

She didn't need me to answer her. I learned that one, too, the hard way.

She smirked. "So," she said, "knock me a little kiss?"

This was so surreal! Wasn't she supposed to throw me out of the house onto the road ... the easement, and let the guy driving the Hummer flatten me on his way home from work?

"I... Yes."

I kissed her.

She smiled into my kiss.

"So, ..." she said. "You going to ask me how cheerleading practice went?"

"Yes," I said.

She waited.

"Oh," I was reeling. I didn't know up from down anymore. "How did cheerleading practice go?"

She smirked. "I swear to God coach is out to kill us! It's the end of the season and we're Tolland High School, for fuck's sake, but she thinks we're going to compete in the nationals or something? I fucking hurt all over, and this is my fourth year, and isn't it suppose to get easier but no!"

"Oh."

"But you would've seen all that, if you came to practice."

"Oh."

"You would've seen me, and the rest of the squad, how good we've become. I'm proud of them, Bella, they've put in a lot of training and hard work and we've really come together as a team, and people think, 'oh, cheerleaders,' but if they saw how much work we put in to get ourselves fit and working together perfectly to pull of some pretty awesome shit, but no ... that's okay, whatever, Bella."

She looked hurt.

"I ... but you want me to do well in school. I was doing my homework, Rosalie, and ..."

"I have homework, too, Bella, you ever think that? You ever think I have cheerleading practice _and _homework and guess who has to do her homework after she drives you home at night, sometimes pretty late. You ever think that, Bella?"

I looked away.

Rosalie's hand was on my chin. "Ever?"

"No," I whispered. I never had.

"You ever think we could've done our homework together? Ever think to ask? No, huh? You just had to do yours on your own, and the whole time not once think to stop by and see what I was doing? Or how I was doing?"

"I... no."

I can't hang my head and not look at her. The two don't work together.

"So, how about your day, Bella. It was 'good, I guess.' What's that mean?"

"I don't know." I sighed.

I guess 'good' meant 'really, really bad,' seeing the shit I am.

"Did you have breakfast this morning?" she asked pointedly.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"The milk went bad."

"Ah." She said. "The milk went bad, so you couldn't have breakfast."

"Raisin bran," I added as explanation.

"Raisin bran," she repeated emotionlessly.

I looked away.

"Think to ask me if we could swing by a Starbucks?"

"Kinda far." I said.

"For my car?" she asked.

"I don't ..." I said. "I don't have money, Rosalie."

I sniffled.

"I do," she said.

"Can't ..." Two tears fell. "Can't ask you for that, Rosalie. Can't."

"Because you couldn't pay me back," she said.

"Yeah."

"'Cause you're poor."

I winced. "Yeah."

"Who said you have to pay me back?"

"I ..."

I sighed. "It's far."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Bella, look at me."

I looked at her.

"There's a fucking McDonalds right off the exit at Rockville. Starbucks is 'too far.' Or fucking Dunkin Donuts, or, fuck, we could come back to my house for some God damn raisin bran if you're gonna let greenbacks keep you hungry with your God-damn 'good ... I guess' day, Bella! Really!"

Rosalie was really angry now. _"Jesus H. Christ!"_

That scream had been brewing since probably the beginning of our conversation.

And that was even before the 'L'-bomb hit.

"I ..."

My shoulders were shaking.

"'How was your day, Bella?'" Rosalie rantingly reiterated the replay. "'Good, ... I guess' 'I'm starving but it's good, I guess.' 'I need a ride, but it's good, ... I guess.' 'I'll do my homework in this dark hallway, all alone by myself, dup-di-doo, while the woman I love is working her ass off, trying to impress me, but I'm not there because I'm scared shitless of what other fucks may think, but I'm good, I guess...'"

Her diatribe was _so_ not helping. My next breath came in a panted sob.

Wait. Did she say she was working her ass off trying to impress ... me?

I looked at her in utter confusion.

"So, you love me, huh?"

Her tone was condescending.

"Yeah ... I gue ... guh!" I choked on my own stupid 'I guess.'

"Really?" she asked, disbelievingly, then her tone got _really_ mocking: _"'Yeah, ... I guess...'"_

_Ouch._

"Yes," I said, more firmly.

Say! That wasn't so bad!

"Uh-huh," she said coolly. "How come I haven't heard you say it, then? Huh?"

"I, um ..."

I had to start over.

"I love you, Rosalie Hale."

I couldn't believe I just said that. Just like that.

"You do, huh?" she said.

"Yes, I do."

Wait. Was that like a wedding vow?

I blushed.

Rosalie put the paddle aside.

"You love me."

"Yes," I said. "I love you."

"Huh," she said, wonderingly. "Well."

She looked at me, and I looked at her.

"Good conversation," she said.

"Huh." I said, surprised myself. So this was what a conversation was?

"Our first," she added.

Wow.

Wow. That's right. We had actually _never_ had a conversation before. We had either been talking at each other, telling stuff, but never really ... engaged, never really learning from each other.

Although Rosalie always knew everything, even about my heart, even before I did.

But this was ... different.

Huh.

"Our first."

"Yeah." She said.

"So, ..." she became a little hesitant now. "You love me?"

"Yes," I said. I wasn't hesitant anymore. "I love you, Rosalie."

She nodded, mulling over that.

"So, ... how come you haven't wished me a happy birthday today?"

* * *

**A/N:** OMG! Eeek! ... and where _did_ Rosalie's panties end up, huh? (`phfina's eyes lose focus for a moment, contemplating) Black... satin ... with ... Rose scent. Drool!


	5. V-Card

**Chapter summary:** First she makes me take off her clothes, making sure my cum stains don't touch her face nor hair on pain of death. Then she makes me wash them in the kitchen sink, and now I have to launder them, too? Yeah: naked. I'm doing her laundry naked. Isn't that swell? _AND_ she won't let me apologize for the whole birthday thing. I'm Bella Swan, and I'm dying of shame. ... Wait. Who is she talking with on her phone?

* * *

[rec]

Um.

...Hi.

So, I found Bella's notebook, and I read her story, and it's good. It's very good.

Particularly coming from where she came from: scared to death of her own shadow, ... and that was before I met her. I'm glad that she can open up and express her feelings. Even if only a little bit. Now, my pleasure at her opening up is _not_ going to spare her the punishment to come for _what_ feelings she's expressed toward me. And, o Bella, dear, the punishment, when it does come, is going to come so fucking hard, it'll make Armageddon look like a fucking Sunday church picnic with wicker baskets and potato salad, I _so_ swear.

Oh, and sweetie, one more thing. Keep writing these chapters. It's therapeutic, right?

And I get to read them. Afterwards. After... you know. Use your imagination.

Did I say the _punishment_ was going 'come so fucking hard,' or that _I_ was? Afterwards. You know.

But, anyway, there are a few things I'd like to clear up, that I'd like to present from my perspective, and while Bella's taking care of the laundry downstairs, I felt I could state some clarifications to what she's written.

I suppose I should begin as she does, then, just for consistency's sake.

I'm Rosalie Hale, and I'm ...

... well, what am I, really? to you? to Bella?

The captain of the cheerleading squad?

A sadist, a monster?

Somebody Bella loves, helplessly?

A blond bombshell, ice queen, sex object, cunt, whore, stuck-up bitch?

Valedictorian of Tolland High School, class of 2013?

I've been called, and thought of, as all of these things, sometimes some of them together.

That doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter what you think of me, because, really, I could care less. It doesn't matter what _I_ think of me, because really, _you_ could care less.

So what's left?

Yes. What's left?

Nothing?

Hm.

I only have a little bit of time before Bella gets done, and I don't want her seeing this recording, so I'll spare you the bullshit, and get right to the point.

The point is this, and it's not about me at all, but ...

You think I have it easy, don't you? You think I can do whatever I want to Bella, and that I can make her do anything I want, make her beg for it, in fact, and that's all there is to it, right? I get to push her around, and crush her spirit, and I get my jollies doing it.

Right?

Do you think I just get off torturing her, and all she can do is go along with it, because I have her between a rock and a hard-place? I do have photos. Video, too. I've recorded her screaming, begging me to do anything to her, just 'please let me cum, Rosalie, _please!'_

Now, wouldn't that be damaging if that got around, and not just school, which would destroy her, I know ... but how about to her mom? How about to college boards? Or prospective employers?

I own her. I own her forever. And there's not a thing she can do about it.

But ...

It's so easy, isn't it? For you to judge, that is. For you to see me, and her, and to say to yourself, 'Oh, that's how it is. There's the victim, and there's the bitch, taking advantage of her.'

So easy for you to say.

And ...

But it wasn't supposed to turn out this way. This way, meaning what's happening now.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

See, it was so simple. I saw her in the school parking lot, going from person to person, her desperation growing, the V-for-Victim neon sign just so huge turned on above her head, and ...

And she was ripe for the taking. A born sucker. And...

And I took her.

And it was simple. I gave her a ride, in exchange for a ride. She got a ride from me, and then ... I got to ride her.

And at first it was only the spanking.

But that's a lie. It never was the spanking. Even the first one, just five little (hard, so exquisitely _hard)_ licks, and I was so worked up, it took every ounce of will-power I had to excuse myself with dignity to 'freshen up.'

I 'freshened up,' all right. I did, really. But that was _after_ I just barely escaped to the bathroom and frigged myself to near senselessness, my ear against the door, listening to her whimpering sobs as I pounded away at my pussy.

So, but ... okay. No problems. A spanking for Bella meant a heady stream of adrenaline and endorphins and caused a powerful need in my body that needed immediate attention. So what? It was just chemical: an intoxicating power trip that gave me a rush like nothing else.

Not that I'm ... _super... _experimental to compare, but ...

But ... then I needed more, and then next day, when I gave her her ride ... both ways ... I ...

I lost it. And I couldn't wait to 'compose' myself.

So I humped her face, right there in the kitchen, and then I spanked her sweet little cunt until she came.

Come to find: Bella is quite the sprayer when she's coming like a freight train. Fuckin-A.

And that was fine, you know, it was cool to be so fucking turned on I lost my cool and she lost a lot of honey, my little honey pot, all over my face and chest.

But then that look in her eyes.

She had it. She had it bad. Day fucking two, and she falls for me. Hard.

She loved me from day two. Maybe even sooner than that, because she could have said 'we're done' on day one, but she didn't, and I could ask 'why' she chose not to, but I think I know why.

Bella Swan loves me, I could see it in her eyes. Not lusts me, not ... whatever-the-fuck a little submissive does when she gets what she wants, no, not 'wants,' what she _needs_ from someone who'll know exactly what to give her and does, even as she tries to pretend that's not what good, strong, independent modern-day girls are supposed to want, supposed to need.

None of that shit.

No, Bella Swan loves me.

And she sucked me right in.

Because, day fucking two, I saw it. I saw what she wouldn't even admit to herself, and I had a choice, right then and there.

'Bella, look, this was fun and all but ... now this is too weird, and I don't have the time nor the inclination to carry your sorry little ass. Get the fuck out of my house and don't let the door hit you on your way out. You can fucking walk home from here, and like I give a fuck if you get flattened by a truck.'

I could have said that. That's what my rep says I would've said: cold, heartless bitch that I am.

I could have said that, that is: if I were just using her, as I thought I was, and she was just a V-for-victim, that she was just supposed to be.

But our simple little deal? It got ... complicated.

Because I found that 'heartless bitch' wasn't exactly an accurate description of what I am.

And I promised myself that I would never ...

Well. The past is the past.

[rec]

... This was supposed to be my clarification of things, my explanation, but now even this is getting complicated. Why can't people just be what their supposed to be? Everybody else plays their role, Lauren, the ice-slut, Jessica, the romantic-gossip, Emmett, the dumb-fuck linebacker ... who's a home-schooled Christian giving a school-wide assembly on the virtues of chastity? and giving me a run for my money on every level at school? My class standing and class presidency were and still are a close-run thing now that guy decided he had to go to Tolland High to play football instead of staying home with his eleven brothers and sisters.

I'm not kidding. E-fucking-leven brothers and sisters.

But, I mean, besides that, everybody else in school are faceless nobodies who know their places, and I know mine. Bella Swan was just a poor victim who needed a ride. She was just begging to be taken advantage of, and I was there to oblige.

Why couldn't it have stayed just like that? Simple. No complications. But then she had to make it all complicated by falling for me, her torturer, and ...

And I had to make it all complicated by falling back for her.

I mean, by reciprocating. 'Falling back for her.' God, that's how Bella would say it! If my parents heard me slipping like this ...

But I have slipped, right down that slippery slope, and now it's just a matter of time before ...

I crush her, and break her heart, and mine, for the good of everything, because that's how things work, that's the way the world is, and that's what we're both expected to do ...

Or ... choose the unthinkable path, and do what? Give up college? My whole life's ahead of me, and I'm going to throw that all away and choose her, just because some poor, white trash has ... captured my heart? ... that I thought I didn't have anymore?

Ridiculous. Imprudent. Stupid.

Impossible.

She has her life, and I have mine, and I'll go off to Dartmouth or Wesleyan or Harvard or Amherst or Brown (I got accepted to all of them, ... and more, but who cares?) and she'll ...

'She has her life.' Right. That's a lie and a half, and I know it, probably better than she does.

When people say Bella Swan is a no-life loser, they are actually totally, entirely, and completely correct. She has no life, nothing to look forward to, and she's so, so lost. If I weren't there in her life, right now, guiding her, firmly, how much more weight would she have lost, with nobody noticing? Because nobody cared enough to. And walking to and from school? How long would that have lasted, before she just gave up and what? Quit school? To do what? Walk to McDonalds so she could work for her daily meal by saying 'you want fries with that?' for the rest of her miserable life?

That is, _if_ she could get a job with McDonalds.

Because Starbucks is 'too far,' for fuck's sake. And Jesus-fuck-my-life-Christ.

Fuck. Complications. Complications, but simple, simple choices.

This was supposed to be fun, God damn it!

What was _supposed_ to happen was that I got to do whatever I wanted to her, and she was supposed to bend over the kitchen table and take it up the ass like the fuck-slut she is.

Incidentally, the innocent ones are the most fun to play with, especially when they have a fire in their belly, like my little Bella. My little belly-Bella-baby.

My baby.

But I don't even get to play with her, not really.

See, there's a secret, a dirty little secret, to all this that no one will admit. And I'm not talking about me and Bella, I'm talking about everything.

You see, I'm giving Bella exactly what she wants. That's my role.

You think that being in control is just a power trip, and that's that?

Power is a tricky thing. You only have power so long as you're given it.

You can't take power, that's force, and that's something else entirely, and force, actually, is no fun at all. I force Bella over a cliff and she goes splat and that's no fun.

But if she _lets_ me push her over the cliff.

_Fuck. _I'm getting wet.

If she _lets_ me spank her... if she _lets_ me hump her, and she gives me those big, big eyes as I'm rutting away on her like the bitch in heat that I am ...

So, do you see the problem?

No, you don't, you fucking frigid prudes, because you're judging me, and you're judging her, and letting life blindside you with a two-by-four to the backside of your heads because you refuse to see what's what.

It's all power. And as long as Bella _lets_ me tan her ass, then I have the power.

But the second she doesn't ...

Then it's not a game anymore, and it's no fun, for either of us, because then I hurt her, and I mean, I _really_ hurt her, because then I'm forcing her and scarring her for life, and she'll know that, ... and I will, too. And she'll never recover from that.

Nor would I.

So we play a little game with each other. I pretend I'm in total, complete control over her every breath.

And she lets me me pretend that.

Do you know how I know this?

I shaved her. I shaved her sweet, little cunt, and it was smooth as a baby's, it was smooth as the day she was born. I had her strapped down on my bed. And I was ready.

"I'm gonna fuck that sweet little cunt of yours, Bella, and there's _nothing you can do about it!"_ I screamed, just losing myself to my lust, basking in my complete domination over her.

But then something happened.

She seized up, and snapped.

There's two types of crying, isn't there? There's the crying of 'please, please help me!' That is, the kind of crying where you're giving yourself over to someone who can give you comfort, and then there's the ... other kind of crying.

The crying of: this is happening to me, and there's nothing I can do, I'm lost, I'm dying.

See, up to now, I had humped her, and I had let her cum.

But there was no penetration involved, so, in her mind ...

I should have seen it. I should have seen that she was still carrying her V-card, and no: not 'V' as in 'V-for-victim'-card.

And I can claim my V-dar wasn't working, but I know that's a lie, too. I saw the signs. I just chose to ignore them up to now, playing a game with her, that she played with everybody, the 'I'm okay' game. 'I'm good,' even though I'm hungry, tired, poor, hurting, but I want to hang with the cool kids, so I'm cool.

'I'm cool,' I'm a virgin, but I'll pretend I'm sophisticated so I can hang with you, Rosalie, because if I'm not cool, you won't hang with me any more, and I'll die.

I was playing that game with her, and we never said anything, we just played the game.

Until the game got serious.

And then it wasn't fun anymore. Because it was serious.

God, did I feel like a shit! And, no, you fucks, I stopped right away, right at my threat, right at her breakdown. What, do you think I'm some monster that would rape her as she fell apart?

Okay: don't answer that.

So, no, I didn't fuck her, but I still felt like shit, because I had pushed her too hard, even though, throughout, she was tensing and tensing up, but I was playing the game, you see, and, well, she was, too, trying to pretend she could take anything I could give, and be cool about it.

But she didn't. She couldn't. And if I were brutally honest with myself, then I'd have to admit I knew this.

So that game was over. Big time. I crawled into bed with her, and loosened the straps and let her cry herself out.

And ...

Did she turn away from me and cry? No. She ... she turned _into me,_ and _held me,_ and cried and cried and cried.

She cried a long time.

And I held her as she cried, and was grateful that she let me.

And.

Okay, the funny thing?

Here's the 'funny' thing: she was _ashamed_ of her virginity! Can you believe that? A girl, seventeen-eighteen, however old she was, was _ashamed_ that she didn't let some asshole ram his cock into her so she could be just like everybody else, ... just like me.

You know: 'knowledgeable,' 'experienced,' world-wise. Jaded. Calloused.

Desensitized. Broken. Cold. Heartless...

Oh, what-fucking-ever, you get my point.

So, yeah. I can do anything I want to her, right?

Bella Swan has done something that nobody else in the world has ever done. She put her life, her heart, right into the palm of my hand, and said: 'it's yours.'

And I can do whatever I want to it. I really, really can.

She lets me.

But.

But, she has it easy. All she has to do is give herself to me, completely, every second of every day that she's with me, and ... even at times when she's not with me, she still does what I tell her to do. She still obeys me.

But now I have her life, her little, tiny beating heart in the palm of my hand.

Her life, her very being is now my responsibility.

And you think I can do whatever I want with it. With her.

Today's my eighteenth birthday. No big deal. It's just a day like any other day.

My dad's flying in from Washington D.C. We're having a party in Hartford tomorrow night. Everybody's invited. Like, everybody. Like, the Governor, our Representatives, my classmates, of course, stock brokers, insurance C.E.O.s ... you know, everybody.

The bigwigs can network, and all us kids can have fun at my birthday party. It's our Senior year, for most of us, and we're going out into the world, off to college, and showing the world what we've got, because _we_ are the champions, my friends! And I'll have a coming out, and all that stuff. Got a new dress made just for this occasion. It's nice.

No big deal.

But today it's just Bella and me ... and ... she didn't know that today was my real birthday.

9:47 pm today, eighteen years ago, Rosalie Lillian Hale was brought into this world.

There were some ... complications.

But...

Oh, shit. I haven't cried since I was fourteen. What the ... what the fuck is this?

Fuck.

[rec]

Anyway.

There's something ...

Bella doesn't have a hymen. I don't penetrate with my fingers, but I have with my tongue, and I've spread her lips, and I've looked, and ...

And I wonder if she's blocking something. I wonder if she snapped because I was getting close, then, to something she hasn't touched in her mind in a long, long time. And...

And there's the stereotypes, right? Poor people. And I've seen the ... thing she lives in. Does she sleep on the floor? I'm kind of afraid to ask, and I've seen more than just her mom in there, and the guy isn't always the same guy. In a month that I've given Bella rides (eventually) home.

And, over the years, were all the guys straight and true and on-the-level and didn't have a wandering eye to a daughter coming home from school while mom was down at the corner 7-11 buying milk?

Bella hasn't said anything, at all, about anything.

But she has the haunted look that Lauren has sometimes, when Lauren's not being coldly furious at everything and everybody.

I mean Lauren's my friend from kindergarden, but it's not a stretch to say she's a hard friend to have. I mean, she can let herself drop that hard, cold mask and be fun sometimes, especially during practice or when it's just us girls, just me and Jess and her, but ...

But she can get vicious in a heartbeat, and she never, never forgives.

And there were the bruises way-back-when, then scared, little Lauren with the hollowed cheeks and the haunted look.

Then the very, very messy divorce that nobody talked about.

That was more than ten years ago, and Lauren now is hard, and bitter.

Bella has those hollowed cheeks, but is it just from hunger? ... and the haunted look, and I mean, not just around me when I'm ... strict, ... but is that from the fear that poverty brings?

Or from something else?

I'm not going to push her.

But I'm not going to let her demons haunt her for the rest of her life, either, and ...

And it's my eighteenth birthday.

And ... I think she's ready now. I think she trusts me now. I mean more. I mean, enough to ...

I mean.

And I think I want to. With her. I think I ... I think I really, really want to with her. For the first time in my life.

No, it's not the first time in my life for _that_. I lost my V-card a long, long time ago, and I really don't want to talk about it.

But I lost my innocence back then.

And Bella is just so innocent. I swear to God, she's a God damn three-year-old, sometimes, and ...

And I want my innocence back. I want to ... love somebody ...

No.

I want to love Bella Swan. You see, she's the only person in this whole fucked-up world who I ...

Anyway.

But I want to love her in her innocence, and hold her in my arms as she gives herself to me, freely, because she wants to, not because she's forced to, but she lets me take her _self,_ her gift to me. That way I can, truly, give myself to somebody, ... no, so I can truly give myself to _her_, and get my innocence back. For the first time in my life.

On my eighteenth birthday.

No big deal. And ...

Oh, shit, here comes Bella.

[stop]

* * *

**A/N:** I'm sorry, my sweeties; I have no words. Rosalie grabbed my laptop as I was writing the next chapter and threw it out the window and handed me her brand new iPhone 5sxz whatever-I-don't-have because I'm not rich like she is. "Never mind that bullshit, you fucking loser; you show them this," and she played this vlog entry for me. I guess I'm supposed to say 'Rosalie says she hopes you enjoy it,' but the way she stormed out afterward, I don't think your enjoyment is uppermost in her mind. ... um ... I'll go back to writing the story, and have the dead-bolt fixed on my door. Maybe Rosalie won't interrupt me again. I hope. Holy terror and fear of God and all that. You know.


	6. Lavandera

**Chapter summary: **You know, I figured it out, finally: it's the exercise. Rosalie has me running everywhere in her whole house for the exercise. Naked. Running naked. I'm Bella Swan, and I'm worked up. _I mean, 'worked out'! Jeez! 'Worked out'! ..._ And worked up, too, but don't tell Rosalie that. Like she's gonna do anything about it ... um, ... um ... I gotta run.

* * *

"I... I.. did the laundry, Rosalie."

Something was wrong.

"No, you didn't." She glared at me, hard, angry at something, but I didn't know at what.

"Um," I said helplessly, looking back into her cold, hard eyes, not daring to look down into the full laundry basket, clothes neatly folded.

You know: proof of what I had just said. Like I just so love folding Rosalie's clothes, and not just hers, but her parents', too.

You learn a lot about a family, folding their laundry, don't you?

The Hales were very rich, of course, but very traditional. You know: the perfect family with the perfect, conservative clothes with the perfect life and the white picket fence in front.

It was like an advertisement, a billboard that screamed: 'Boring family! Nothing to see here!'

"You have something to say to me?" she demanded.

"Um, no," I said quietly, averting my eyes.

"Then _why..."_ she snarled, "did you say the laundry's done, when the clothes are not put away in their proper places? Honestly, Bella, you know what to do!"

"Oh," I said.

"Now, hop to it, and don't dawdle, like you did down the laundry room!"

I felt the heat rising in my cheeks, _"I didn't daw..."_

_"WHAT?"_

Silence.

Rosalie's face was livid.

_Oh, shit!_ I had answered her back! What had gotten into me?

"I mean," I said quickly, "I won't dawdle, Rosalie, I promise! I won't ..."

"Bella,"

Rosalie's voice was quiet and controlled.

I shuddered, looking down at the laundry, scared out of my mind. Why did I have to answer her back? Why am I such an idiot?

"I want you," she said, "to go upstairs, _carefully,_ put away the laundry without delay, and report back here when you are done, okay?"

"Yes, Rosalie," I said quietly.

"What?"

"I said, ..." I said.

"Bella, why are you talking to the laundry, instead of me?" Rosalie's voice was both hard and soft, chiding, angry, ... and hurt.

I blushed, embarrassed, and dragged my eyes up to meet hers.

There was a lot of real estate to drag my eyes up to.

The laundry I had been doing included Rosalie's dirty clothes, that I had soiled, so Rosalie's clothes were in the laundry basket, fresh, clean, and warm and dry from the drier.

That is to say: not on her, so ... yeah.

It's hard looking Rosalie in the eye, when Rosalie, herself, is an eyeful.

And a half.

My face was burning, aware of my own state of undress, but my body practically hidden behind the laundry basket.

Rosalie's body wasn't hidden behind anything.

But ... and you really have to be here for my statement to make any sense, but that didn't matter, because Rosalie's eyes...

They sucked you right in, and you lost yourself in them. Literally, I lost myself in her eyes, and she could be saying anything and I could be saying anything, but I wouldn't be able to tell you later what either of us had said, or, like, she could be totally naked, standing in front of me, and I could be totally naked, in front of her, holding this big basket of laundry, and, although I was very aware of my ... how do you say it? Nakedity? Nakedi-...city?

Something like that.

But _her?_ I was like ... she could be the Statue of Liberty with a golden crown and holding up a torch, just like in when those movies open with that woman with the torch, right? But ...

I saw none of it. I was lost in her eyes. They filled my universe. They _were_ my universe.

"I said," I said quietly, into her eyes, "'yes, Rosalie,' ..."

I was going to say more, but I didn't know what to say.

"Good girl," Rosalie said, cooling slightly.

"Rosalie ..."

"What?" she snapped.

She had ... uncooled.

"Um, is everything okay?" I asked shyly.

"What do you mean?"

She didn't ask that like she ... meant those words, precisely. I mean, she always means what she says, but ...

She asked that like: "What do you mean to dare to ask me that question?" like in that kind of way.

Like.

"Um, I mean, ... well ..." I bit my lip.

Rosalie simmered, her glare getting hotter, and her attitude getting colder by the second.

She hates dithering as much as she hate dawdling.

She let me know that. Personally. Several times.

"Well," I said in a rush before she lost it, "you were just on the phone, and I was wondering if everything's okay or did something happen or ..."

"What business is that of yours?" she said.

Ice. The pure cold radiating from her body? I swear I saw the windowpanes frosting up. I saw the paint peeling off the walls, it was so cold in the room, just from her icy fury.

She was erect, and her arms were crossed, and ...

And speaking of 'crossed' ...

My eyes fixed on the tiny golden cross around her neck.

She never took it off.

I mean, I never saw her take it off, ever. It was like a talisman. It was like a part of her, so much so that it was like she didn't know it existed, it was just a part of her.

But she always wore it. It was unobtrusive, sometimes she even wore it under her tee. But it was always there. It was like ... her protection?

"Something captured your attention?"

Rosalie's voice broke through my reverie.

"Um, no," I said quickly, dragging my eyes back up to hers.

Her eyes were amused, in that superior way of hers ... almost merry. That confused me.

"Um, ..." I said, a lost skiff rocking in the sea changes of her emotions.

"Bella," Rosalie chuckled, "staring at my tits, are you?"

_"What?" _I squeaked. "No! I wasn't looking at that." No. "Those." No. "Them." No. "Ther."

Uh, okay. _'Ther'? _Stellar, Bella; just stellar.

Rosalie smirked. She had me, and it was because me and my stupid, big mouth talked me right into a corner.

"Bella, ... put the laundry basket down."

I shuddered, and put it down, trying not to look at ... well, anything.

When I straightened up, Rosalie was full-on right in front of me, right in my space.

"Bella," her voice was teasing and dangerous, "you were looking at my tits."

"Um, no! No, Rosalie, I wasn't! I was ..."

"I wasn't asking you a question, Bella."

I knew that. I knew I wasn't supposed to answer back, but ... I had to. I just had to. I mean, she was thinking one thing, and I so totally wasn't doing that thing. Totally.

"Bella, you're looking at my tits right now."

Um. Shoot. So, okay, how to you avert your eyes with her ... okay, with her tits right in front of you. And I mean, like right in front of you. Like.

You know what I mean?

My face was burning. Burning like needing SPF-3000 sunscreen. At least. I looked away.

"It's okay, Bella," she said consolingly, forcing my head back to face her.

I tried to look away. I couldn't.

"Get an eyeful of'm. Everybody else does. Or they want to. Go ahead and look."

Her voice was authoritarian. I tried to squirm away without ... you know: squirming. I felt trapped, looking at something that I knew I shouldn't be looking at, but forced not to look away.

And ashamed that if she weren't forcing me to look, that is, if she weren't forcing me to fight against her forcing me to look ... would I have found it hard to look away, if I knew I wasn't being caught?

I didn't want to think about that. I didn't think I'd like to know that I'm that kind of person: weak and sneaky.

You know: how I really am.

"Stop struggling, Bella," Rosalie commanded. "Look."

I stopped. Her voice was getting angry, and ... I ... she said she wouldn't whip me, but ... Rosalie Hale, not beating the crap out of me, not getting that release?

I was afraid if I made her angry, she just might explode and kill me, because she denied herself that outlet.

Bella Swan. That's me. Literally a whipping girl for her ... okay, for her _Mistress._ But don't you ever catch me thinking that word, because Rosalie Hale wasn't to be boxed into words like 'sadist' or whatever. You box her into one thing, she gets really mad at that, and punishes you, a long time, a _really_ long time, for daring to thinking of her as anything other that _her, she_ who must be obeyed.

Rosalie Lillian Hale.

I looked.

God, she's ... beautiful. Her ... tits, they're full and firm. I would say 'unlike mine' but I can't: I don't have tits. I just wear a bra because I'm ashamed not to. Just one more thing to be teased about, or worse: to be not even noticed. I don't get picked for teams in volleyball and softball, I'm the last one defaulted to a team. I don't get noticed by boys. I don't have a boyfriend.

I never have.

Rosalie was the only person in the whole world who noticed me, and ... it must be because she was looking for somebody so totally opposite to her, in all respects.

Well, except in gender. There is that, but even then, her tits are ... awesome, and mine are awful. Her pussy is a woman's, mine is a baby's slit.

So even in that, even though we're both girls, we're total opposites.

And she noticed me. She ... chose me.

To be her plaything, yeah, but ...

Nobody ever chose me for anything. Ever.

Until Rosalie noticed me.

And ...well, she told me to look at her, to 'get a full, good look.'

And ...

God ... I want her.

I'm such a slut. I'm looking at the most beautiful woman in the world, and I'm reduced to a useless, retarded, quivering mass, wanting her so bad.

Exactly how she wants me to be.

I blushed in shame, but I couldn't look down more. I already was.

I felt Rosalie's pleasure. I diminish, and she grows in strength, and power, and glory. It's like she revels in my embarrassment.

Rosalie grabbed me by the back of the neck. "Good girl," she purred, then she pulled me up, a little bit, so I had to stand on tip-toes almost, and she bent down slightly and whispered into my ear, "Sweetie, you be a good girl today, and I'll let you more than just _look_ at my tits."

"Uh ..." I almost gasped in embarrassment.

"Sh, sh, baby," she shushed, "I know how much you like mommy-time. Well, you be good, and don't piss me off, I'll give you some special mommy-time. What do you say to that, Bella?"

"Uh ..." I repeated.

What I'd say to that is she has no idea how much I like mommy-time ... when we're ... you know ... 'mommy-timing' ... you know? But talking about it? Planning for it? Offering it for good behavior?

I think dying of embarrassment was a real possibility.

Rosalie chuckled. "Bella, you are such a tit-girl!" she exclaimed.

Her wry, humorous observation had the opposite effect on me, though.

"How can I ..." I whispered sadly. "How can I be something I don't have?"

She snickered. That hurt.

"I don't know about that," she said easily. "But I do know you obsess over mine, and I do know ..."

She paused, and I looked up, intrigued to know what she knew.

Her hand reached out and tweaked my nipple.

"Eeek!" I squealed in surprise, the shock of it ricocheting around my body like a pinball.

Rosalie smirked. "And I do know that I so love your pretty little titties, Bella."

"You do?" I asked, confused and surprised.

"Uh, huh," she said. "They are just so shy and sweet and responsive. I love how you squeak when I touch 'em. I love how your nipples harden up to little pebbles at my slightest glance. I love how you suck in air in shocked gasps when I lick them, and suck on them, and nibble at them. You say you don't have titties, but you're just wrong there, Bella. You have a sweet little set of happy fun bags, and that's the truth. That they're shy, just like you, and not out there for everybody to see means you've been saving them just for me. And I like that, too, sweetie. You're so shy and sweet and innocent, and you save all your treasures, for me, and me, alone."

She paused, smiling, quiet, then added: "And I like that."

She looked at me steadily after she said that, measuring how her words hit me.

They hit me, all right. In fact, you could've knocked me over with a feather. _No one_ had ever complimented me, and _never_ like that.

And Rosalie Hale ... I mean, _the _Rosalie Hale just said all those things, and she said it ...

Like she said it like she wasn't leading me on, like she was just saying it. Like it was true, or something.

She smirked, probably pleased at my stunned look. Pleased that she could always keep me off-balance, be it with the carrot or the stick.

Well, she never had used a switch yet, and neither had she used a carrot on me, for that matter. I mean, like ...

Oh, my God! Why am I thinking what you're thinking how Rosalie would use a carrot on me all of the sudden?

Why is it hot in the kitchen all of a sudden?

"I bet, ..." she added suddenly, "that I could make you cum, just by playing with your tits."

I gulped, and she looked at me speculatively.

"What do you say, Bella, take me up on it?"

"I ... um ..." I stuttered.

"C'mon, it'll be ... _fun."_

She had that wicked look in her eye.

"Uh, no," I said quickly then at her look, "no, thank you."

She snorted. "Aw, c'mon, Bella. How can you lose? You lose the bet, it's because you're cumming from me sucking on your tits. I say: what a way to lose! And if you win, it'd be after hours and hours of me touching, and caressing, and nibbling, and licking, and sucking, and kissing your sweet, little, tiny titties ... you know I don't give up easily, sweetie ..."

I _knew_ she didn't give up easily. In fact, she had never lost a bet.

No, wait.

"... so you'd get all that attention, and all you have to do is say, 'yes, Rosalie, I take that bet.' What do you say?"

She had that huntress look: hungry, and predatory.

I probably had that hunted look. Scared, and ... well, scared.

"Rosalie," I said carefully, "you've never lost one of our ... 'bets.'"

She smirked. "Yeah?"

"So, ..." my heart was beating a mile a minute. "If I came, would it be with your permission, or without?"

Her smile widened. "How could I tell you you have my permission to cum with my lips sucking on your tit?"

Translation _(Rosalie's_ translation): so if I lost, I'd lose, big time.

"And ... so ..." I said nervously, "you'd suck on my tits for hours and hours, not letting me cum ...?"

She shrugged. "Well, yeah, suck them, but also play with them, and caress them, and give them sweet, little smacks, until, of course, you lost your fucking mind, in what, Bella, the first thirty seconds? You are just so easy to get worked up. But, you know, I did say 'hours and hours,' so we'd have to keep going, you know: to honor the bet. For that long. At least. _Then_ I guess I'd say, 'okay, you can cum now, Bella.' Then you'd cum, all right, with, you know: one of your famous mind-blowing orgasms. So, yeah, ... and?"

That didn't sound like 'fun.' That sounded like 'torture.' Tit-torture. Of the mind-fucked variety.

"So, no, thank you, Rosalie," I said as respectfully as I could.

Is a breathy voice respectful? I don't know. I tried to make it be.

Her smile became wry with disappointment. "Your loss. It would've been ... fun."

Yeah. 'Fun.' I should know by now that 'fun' meant 'fun' for Rosalie, and agony for me, trying not to cum, and for hours on end, right on the edge?

Sounded like _tons_ of fun, ... for her.

I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief, having escaped Rosalie's ... 'fun.'

But I couldn't handle her intense, ... _appreciative_ look of my body, my tits, my face, my stomach ... it was like she _wanted_ to suck on my tiny tits for hours on end, ...

And, thinking of her doing that ... not cruelly, but gently, teasingly but sweet ..._ly_ ...

I couldn't handle her appreciative look. I couldn't handle the thoughts of her doing all those things she said she do to me, because she wanted to, because she liked my tits, and she liked playing with them.

I couldn't handle that. It made me sad and ... weak: horny and wet, all at the same time.

"Wh-what about you, Rosalie?" I asked, shy and embarrassed.

"What about me?" she asked right back.

"I mean, you ... your ..." I couldn't help but glance down, even for a microsecond. "Are you a t-t-tit-girl, too? ... I mean, do you ..."

Okay, my cheeks were really hurting.

Rosalie snickered.

"Lessee," she said, grabbing my hands, and then placing them on her breasts.

She regarded me levelly. "What do you think, Bella: do you think I'm a tit-girl?"

I thought it was hot before. "Um," I said helplessly, barely even able to breathe.

She smirked, but I felt maybe she was sad. "You can't even answer me! You're so lost to your feelings, to this feeling. I like that about you, too. You are your feelings, but it doesn't leave room in your head for thought, does it. All you do is feel and react. But can you think beyond this feeling, Bella? Can you answer me? What do you think. Am I a tit-girl, too?"

I tried to think. I did. Honest! But she was looking right at me, and I was embarrassed, and I was holding her ... you know ... her breasts, and they were so ...

God.

They were so perfect. Firm. Full. I mean, they were like ... _there._

Like mine aren't.

"I..." I said, "I don't know how to answer, Rosalie. I ..."

"You don't know what you think I want to hear you say?" she demanded.

I looked away.

Rosalie took my hand from her breast and put it to my cheek. My hands and fingers are normally cold, but now my hand on my hot cheek was ... hot, heated by Rosalie's warmth.

And people say she's cold. They don't know _shit_ about her. When Rosalie burned with passion, she burned _hot._

"Nah," she answered for me, rescuing me. "I'm not a tit-girl. They're just there, and really, I could've cared less about them, but ..."

I dared to look at her. She was staring right at me. Hungrily.

I looked away, embarrassed.

I felt Rosalie lean in. Her breath was hot on my cheek.

She whispered in my ear, sultrily. "But I like that you like'm. I like how you can't take your eyes off'm. I like how you cringe when I catch you looking. I _love_ that."

I swear to God, Rosalie's trying to kill me. She's trying to give me a heart attack by embarrassing me to death.

Her tone turned wicked ... _er. _"So, you like copping a feel, do ya, Bella?"

"Aaah!" I gasped, shocked.

My hand on her breast burned like it was resting on a wood-stove in Winter, cherry red from continuous burning. My hand stung, and I tried to pull it away.

She wouldn't let me. "I asked you a question. Yes, or no."

"Please, I..." I begged. "Please, Rosalie ... please don't make me answer. I..."

"Please don't make you answer because you'd say 'yes,' Bella?" she demanded harshly. "Or because you'd say 'no.' Answer that question."

I felt my knees shaking. "Because, ... because, ..." I said, "because the answer'd be 'yes,' and I ..."

She let my hands go and stepped back.

It felt like something inside ripped away from me when she pulled back. It hurt, her separating from me. It made me want her more, her leaving me to myself.

I looked back to her, sadly. She embarrassed me, then she left me alone.

But she wasn't affected. She was smirking, in fact.

She waved imperiously to the laundry basket. "Put away the laundry, tit-girl."

Ouch. Here I was, hurting inside, and she hurts me more.

"Yes, Rosalie," I said sadly, and bent to pick up the basket.

And she was on me. On my ass, her hand on my neck, keeping my head down.

She was wet, a little bit.

She sighed, happily. "Do you have any idea what I want to do to your sweet little ass right now, my sweet-sad little Bella?"

"Um, ..." I said, smelling the fresh, clean, warm smell of just-laundered clothing. "I think if you give me three tries, I might guess."

Three guesses: beat my ass to a pulp, first, second, fuck it until she came on me, frigging me mercilessly as she humped my ass, or third: both.

Her hand shifted in its grip, and she dragged me up to a standing position, facing the wall.

"Baby," she growled. "If I gave you a million guesses, you wouldn't even come close."

Then she shoved me back toward the laundry basket. "Run along, tit-girl."

I picked up the laundry and ran, almost literally for my life.

Rosalie accuses me of being a tit-girl, and I don't know about that, but I do know one thing for sure.

Rosalie Hale is an ass-girl.

I heard a sighed _"Dat... asssss!"_ as I ran.

I _so_ rest my case.

Rosalie's angry shout followed me as I ran: _"You be careful on the staircase!"_

"Yes... Rosalie!" I shouted back.

I swear, I almost slipped and shouted back a sarcastic "Yes, Mother!" Like I was a baby that had to be told not to fall down the steps! What, did she think I was a seven-year-old, reading her book falling down the steps, or something?

Not like I'm speaking from personal experience. Not like I have a permanent scar on my forehead from doing just that, but ...

But if I had angrily bit off that answer to her ...

I think I would've made her a liar about her not whipping me. And Rosalie furiously _pissed off_ giving a whipping is a very, very different thing than Rosalie coldly controlled whipping me.

I did not need to see her furious today. Not on her birthday.

But ... what did she mean, a million guesses and I'd never know what she planned for my ass?

I was afraid to even think about what that meant.

* * *

**A/N: **_Shoot! Too long! WAAAY too long! _(I'm talking about the _chapter, you pervs!), so_ I had to break up this chapter into this one and the next one. AND this is a complete rewrite because I had to throw away the first draft, _completely,_ because _some_body barged in and highjacked the last chapter! I'm not naming names, or anything, but her initials are R.L.H. and she _may_ go to Tolland High. That's just an FYI for ya.

Oh, AND the next chapter is _WAY TOO LONG! AGAIN!_ Tons of ground to cover for our girls before they can _git bizy! ..._ Not that their gonna git bizy, or anything like that, I'm just sayin' that if they _were_ going to git bizy, they'd have ground to cover, is all ... hm-hm-hm.

I mean, Rosalie _did_ offer a million guesses to what she wanted to do to little Bella's posterior, but ... nope. Not going there. Rosalie might, but ... _No! I said I wasn't going there! JEEZ!_

Oh, and p.s.: Couture _wrote back!_ and gave me her blessing for this story! YAY! Updating the first chap with the 411.


	7. A Close Shave

**Chapter summary: **Okay. _Seriously!_ She ... works me up into a lather with her soft, soft touch of the razor (like, okay: _Oh. MyGod!),_ then she tells me to lie on her bed in a particular way so she can 'take care of me'? _And then she doesn't?_ I'm Bella Swan, and I NEED THE BIG-O, RIGHT NOW AND PLEASE AND OH, MY GOD! ... please?

* * *

I put away the laundry quickly, which included her clothes, and her mother's, too.

Her father had suits. And undies. But ...

He never had laundry. His clothes were all here, all hanging, all neatly put away, but ...

Never in the hamper.

Her dad was never home.

_"Are you dawdling?"_ an impatient call from downstairs.

"No, Rosalie," I shouted back. "No, I'm coming back; I'm ..."

_"Well...?"_ Even more impatient.

I rushed back downstairs, carefully, and ran to the kitchen.

"Done!" I huffed out of breath.

Rosalie was snacking. She had one of her specialty-branded yogurt cups in hand, and she was savoring each spoonful as she regarded me critically.

Her ... yogurt. You think Greek yogurt is hip now, all the rage, because it's good for you and whatever?

Yeah. Do you think Rosalie follows trends, or sets them?

There's this special-_special_ kind of yogurt called 'skyr.' It's from Iceland. I'm not kidding, it's from the country _Iceland,_ and it's, like, twice as thick and creamy as Greek yogurt, non-fat, no sugar added, and costs I don't know how much, and like that matters to her that my whole lunch at the cafeteria costs less than one of those tiny cups of yog-..., excuse me, _skyr,_ in Rosalie's hand.

"siggi's skyr." All lower case, 'cause that's how they roll, just like e.e. cummings, or something. Branded, and everything. They have their story on their detachable and recyclable label. They have their own website.

Rosalie took another tablespoon of that rich, creamy, ... okay: _coconut-flavored? _... yogurt into her mouth, and my eyes followed the spoon from the cup to her mouth.

I suddenly realized how hungry I was.

"'Done,' huh?" Rosalie demanded disapprovingly.

Uh, oh. What did I do now?

"Is the laundry basket put away downstairs, done?" she asked.

"Oh," I said, and made to put it away.

"Stop!" she ordered.

I froze.

"Your clothes are in the wash, done?"

"Um."

She let me, or made me, wash my clothes today. But I had to do them separately. Apparently she didn't want my cum seeping onto her mom's undergarments.

I could understand that, I guess.

"Bring the basket downstairs, transfer your clothes to the drier, and report back to me here, right away, you understand me?"

"Yes," I said.

Rosalie glared, taking another thoughtful tablespoonful of yogurt into her mouth.

She didn't swallow food. No, she was too good for chewing and gulping like the rest of humanity: she let it _absorb_ into her being.

I'm not joking.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"Oh," I said, and dashed off.

_"Carefully!" _she shouted after me.

_"I'm being careful!"_ I shouted back, grasping the hand rail.

What was her problem? Did she think I couldn't manage going up and down a set of stairs without her watching every single one of my steps?

Just as I had that thought was when my foot slipped on the bottom stair, just before the basement floor, and I slipped onto my butt.

"Ow!" I whimpered as quietly as I could.

But I couldn't silence the loud sound of my butt bonking onto the stairs.

The door upstairs slammed open against the wall.

Rosalie looked down at me from the top of the stairs, pale, white. Livid.

"The fuck, Bella! _The fuck!_ I fucking _told _you to be careful! Jesus-God-Almighty!"

"I'm okay! I'm okay!" I said quickly.

Yeah, only my ego was (badly) bruised. And maybe my butt. But my butt-bone wasn't broken, so I guess that made me okay.

Rosalie glared down at me furiously. One sure way to make her lose her fucking mind, I've found, was when I hurt myself, being stupid and clumsy, 'inattentive,' as she put it. She _hates _that, and she gets really unpredictable when she's that angry. I mean, like, sometimes, it's like she's scared, or something, and doesn't know what to do with herself when she's not sure if I hurt myself really badly. Sometimes she knows exactly what to do, and makes me pay attention for a long, _long_ time as she administers a very severe correction to my 'inattentive' behavior.

And I can never tell which way she goes, when she gets that angry.

She stewed for a second, looking down at stupid, clumsy me.

"It's like you're a fucking three-year-old, Bella, I swear to God," she hissed. "A fucking three-year-old could go up and down the stairs better'n you, ..."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll be more careful! I promise!" I said, hasty with desperation.

But Rosalie's face was suddenly far, far away.

I stared, shocked at the sudden transformation.

She looked down at me, and then ... she couldn't look at me any more.

But then she did. She gave me a hard, cold stare. "Be _careful!"_ she snarled, and slammed the door so hard the frame shook. The whole fucking house shook.

She slammed the door so hard, my teeth felt the force of it.

I picked up the laundry basket, shaken from the fall, shaken from her anger, and put it away.

I shifted my load of laundry from the washer to the drier, _quickly,_ and rushed back upstairs, _carefully._

But it didn't stop the thoughts from running rampant in my head.

Why had she suddenly become quiet like that?

Rosalie was washing out her cup of yogurt, the label removed and separated.

Rosalie recycled.

She turned back to me, regarding me coolly. And I wondered what the lecture would be of her telling me to be careful, and me ... not being careful.

She frowned dismissively, displeased at what an obvious failure I was.

I think a three-hour lecture from her about my inadequacies would have hurt less than that one dismissive frown.

"Fetch me a razor from my bathroom, Bella."

"Yes," I said, and I was gone, as fast as I could, trying to get away from her critical stare, trying to do just one thing right.

She didn't shout _'carefully!'_ after me, but you can bet I went up those stair paying attention to each one.

I got all her toiletries, just in case, and rushed back downstairs.

Rosalie looked at what I had brought, and smiled, pleased.

I sighed with relief. One thing right, at least.

"Good," she said, and indicated for me to put her toiletries by the sink.

I did, and when I turned back to face her, ...

She was holding the paddle.

My heart nearly stopped.

She regarded me thoughtfully.

"Bella, ..." she said slowly.

The she flipped the paddle up into the air. I flinched back, but she caught it, adroitly, by the paddle, itself. The handle was facing me.

"Put the paddle away," she commanded softly.

"Yes," I said, and carefully gripped the handle, taking the paddle from her.

I tried to sneak past her, invisible, unnoticeable.

But I wondered, ... why, like, four trips? I could've done the laundry, get the toiletries, and bring the laundry basket and the paddle back all in one circle. Why did she have to ...

The universe suddenly said _WHAM!_

... Wow.

When I caught my bearings, I was pressed up against the refrigerator, Rosalie was glaring at me, death in her eyes.

The vitamin bottles on top of the refrigerator were still shaking, making clattering sounds as they hit each other.

Rosalie was leaning into me, and her hand grasped my wrist that held the paddle.

"What was that look?" she demanded, her voice very tightly controlled.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. I could only stare, transfixed, into her blank eyes, masking the fury burning inside her.

"Bella,..." she said carefully, "do you think you can take advantage of me on my birthday? Is that what you're thinking?"

"Rosalie! No! I..." I blurted fearfully.

"SHUT _UP!"_ she screamed right in my face.

I shut up, but my heart was beating loud in my ears.

"Do you know what you're telling me right now, little girl?" she demanded. "I said I wouldn't whip your sorry ass, but what? Do you want me to regret that choice, is that it?"

I was helpless in her grasp.

"When I beat the shit out of you, you are respectful, obedient, and _fucking grateful to be fucking alive!_ But now, Bella, ..."

She glared.

"That look? And before that, _answering back? _The _fuck, _Bella! _'I'm not dawdling!' _you say?" Her whiney-Bella voice was pitch-perfect. She should go into acting, or something. She'd take Hollywood by storm. Just like she took me: by storm. She stormed: "What the fuck is that, Bella?"

She continued, furious: "You cop that attitude with me? You're just so full of piss and vinegar, aren't you?"

She got angrier.

_"AREN'T YOU?"_

"No, Rosalie, please, I ..."

"Bella," she said quietly. "If you want, I can take you upstairs right now to bed, strap you down, break my word, fuck, break my paddle on your sorry little ass, and beat the piss out of you. Hell, you're full of shit, too, Bella, aren't you? Feeding me your _'I'm sorry' _line. You just go on like this, and see how pissed you can get me. I'll keep fucking beating you until you shit all of that out, too, because I know you _so love_ washing my sheets afterward."

I whimpered.

Actually, what I so loved was _NOT_ getting the piss beat out of me, because she tied my feet above my head, so when I did piss, I pissed right into my own face.

The first time _that_ happened, I cried so hard, peeing right into my face, I thought I was going to scream my throat to hamburger. I thought I wouldn't be able to talk again, I screamed so hard I nearly hurt myself.

But if I were looking for pity or sympathy from Rosalie ...

She didn't think I had learned my lesson, learned total and complete obedience yet, so she kept beating me until I shat myself, and ...

Yeah ... it slid down my back ... onto the sheets ... which, afterwards, I had to strip from her bed, quickly, and then soak, hand-wash and wring out ... in her toilet.

Sometimes ... yes, _sometimes, _because this has happened more than once, thanks. Sometimes the stains couldn't be removed, so she just threw her sheets in a trash bag.

That didn't stop her from supervising my every move, making sure I hand-washed every single stain.

Yes, so, actually: I so loved _not_ doing that.

So, yes, when Rosalie said do something, like 'fetch me the paddle,' I fucking ran to do it. I did _not_ need a reminder like that on the lessons of discipline and obedience.

So what the fuck was wrong with me that I didn't run to put it back? Was I fucking stupid or something?

Um. Don't answer that.

But I'd better answer her. Beating the shit out of me? No, thank you, and please, God, no, thank you!

"No, Rosalie," I begged. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Rosalie shook her head.

"Blah-blah, Bella, whatever," she said, disappointed. "All I see is now is you being sullen, inattentive and ungrateful, but when I beat the shit out of you, you are just the opposite. You pay attention, you don't have those spiteful little back-biting looks, you are ... grateful. What lesson are you wanting me to take away, right now, from what I promised, huh?"

"I'll be good, Rosalie!" I cried. "I promise!"

"Really?" she asked disbelievingly. "And you don't need a beating to do that?"

"I ..."

"Bella," she glowered.

I stopped.

"I am the only one sure thing in your life," she said, finality ringing in her voice. "Do you know that? You have absolutely no discipline, so _I_ am your only discipline. That's why you need me. You _need me._ But you have to discipline yourself, too, Bella. You can get away with your stupid, little games and your silly back-biting shit with everybody else in the world, but that shit doesn't fly with me. So I can take you upstairs and fucking beat you into unconsciousness right now, and you'll wake up in your own God-damn shit you wallow in all day anyway, or I can keep my word and _not _beat some discipline into you, but instead drag your sorry ass to the car and kick you the fuck out right in front of your ... house, and you can God-damn explain to your mother why you're walking to school for the rest of ... however long you want to play your stupid-ass games with me, and, oh, by the way why you're naked, too, little miss 'I love you, Rosalie Hale,' ..."

"No," I begged.

"Fuck, Bella," she said tiredly. "You're not going to discipline yourself around me? You're going to be an ungrateful little shit, then you can go right back to your mommy, because I just ..."

She broke off, quickly, fuming.

"I'm sorry, Rosalie. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ... just please, just please. I'm sorry." I begged sofly.

She totally ignored me.

"Bella." she said.

She waited.

I stayed quiet. God, I'm flubbing this up, and speaking is only making it worse and worse!

"Or," she continued quietly, "you can, for once in your life, discipline yourself, be grateful that I'm cutting you some slack, on today of all days, and pay attention to what you're doing, and what you're even fucking thinking around me, because, sweet little miss Bella Swan, if you haven't fucking figured it out yet, I can see every single one of your thoughts in your head as you think them."

I knew that, actually. I had figured that out, too.

Rosalie Hale knew every single one of my thoughts. That wasn't me just saying. That was the God's-honest truth. In fact, I think she knew everybody's thoughts. I saw people, I saw what they were thinking, thinking they could get away with whatever they thought about people, each other, about Rosalie.

And I saw her read them, and I saw her judge them, each and every one of them, and she just judged them all, and their stupid, pointless, careless thoughts as ... not worth her time to bother about.

Boys stared, girls glared. Rosalie just sailed above them all. Even her friends had their pettiness, but she just didn't care. She didn't accept it, or ignore it, she just was too ... _herself ..._ to be bothered by any of it.

But she cared about me. She didn't ... _ever ... _let me get away with shit.

Ever.

"Please, Rosalie, I'll be good," I pleaded. "I promise. I'm sorry. I just ..."

"Shh!" she snarled, then glared at me, hard.

I bit my lip.

"You'll be attentive?" she demanded.

"Yes," I said quickly.

"I won't have to fucking watch you like a hawk every second?"

I shook my head.

"Grateful?" she pressed.

"Yes." I said humbly.

She leaned back.

"Show me," she said.

"I... yes, Rosalie," I said obediently.

But I didn't know what she meant.

"On your knees, Bella, now," she commanded, then added: "and show me gratitude."

Oh. _This_ I understood. I dropped to my knees, quickly, and, carefully reached around, pulling myself into her.

I didn't know what to do with the paddle. It stayed in my hand, and brushed against her butt. I didn't dare put it down, but I was scared — terrified — that I might be doing something wrong.

But I did do what I knew what to do.

I knew how to worship Rosalie Hale's cunt.

I'm actually a good learner, and I've had lots of practice. I knew how to stiffen my tongue and stab into her, bringing her off quickly when she needed a quick release. I also knew how to kiss, and to tease, and to lap gently, easing her up, and keeping her suspended in bliss for thirty or forty minutes ... even more than an hour. We had sessions on her bed, particularly after really hard workouts at cheerleading practice for her, I supposed, or a really shitty day at school... again, for her, I supposed. And for me? I couldn't float like Rosalie could, it was always a need that burned, pulling at me, tearing me apart, torturing me until she let me cum, and when I did, it was, as she said, mind-blowing ... I was even scared I'd scream out a lung or explode out my guts sometimes.

But for her, she could float and float and float in bliss, and just stay there, presumably forever, and my jaw would _hurt, _I swear it hurt! and my tongue would be so tired, but I would lick and lick and lick and suck, and she would float in bliss, sighing happily as I worshiped her.

And ... I would be so happy, doing it, pleasing her, because it was the one thing that I could do, and do well: please Rosalie Hale, and ... I don't know if I can describe it, but her happiness welled up inside me, inside my tummy and my heart, and I was just so happy in her happiness.

And then, sometimes ... well, every time, actually, after I had worshiped her a while, her desire would well up inside of her, and she would grab me, pull me up to her, flip us over, and ...

And fuck me.

She'd fuck me with a strong, steady, _determined_ fucking, until she came on my cunt. Or she'd flip me over onto my tummy and go savage on me and fuck my ass with a will and cum like gang-busters as she groped and tugged at my tits and rubbed my clit, bringing me along with her sometimes. It all depended whether she wanted to look into my eyes as she took me, and kiss me hard, after she threw her head back, groaning, or whether she needed to fuck like there was no tomorrow, just losing herself to her lust on my ass, humping away like an animal needing to breed.

And she'd ... fall asleep, just like that, right on top of me, sweating, panting, then sleeping. Or she'd push me away if she didn't want to be touched because she was so sensitive. She pushed me right off the bed sometimes and lay there gasping and panting, then she'd grunt angrily at me: "Uhn!" and sleep.

"Uhn" from Rosalie meant "Fix me dinner, bitch!" I've come to learn.

So, but, she ... well, she liked it on her bed, where she could be all comfy as she floated along ... but, well, if she needed it now ... if she needed _me_ now, then ...

I opened my jaw wide, stretching the muscles as best and as quickly as I could. I could tell this was going to be a marathon session, and I mentally prepared myself to endure the pain to come on my knees and the stiffness in my lower back after prolonged kneeling.

Worshiping Rosalie's cunt is hard work in any case, but on the kitchen linoleum floor? It was going to be agony.

But there was nothing for it. I mean, there was only her, and everything I could give, and that's how it would always be.

Me, worshiping her.

I bent in and kissed her softly. "I'm grateful, Rosalie."

She sighed a quiet, little contented sigh.

"I'm grateful, Rosalie," I said, kissing her there again, worshipping her.

"I'm grateful, Rosalie," I kissed softly, but this time, a little tiny bit more deeply, a tiny, little bit longer, a little, tiny bit more adoringly.

"I'm ..."

Rosalie's hands, resting lightly on my shoulders, shifted, and pulled me up.

I shuddered, and looked at her in confusion. What had I done wrong? I hadn't even started with my tongue yet. Why did she stop me?

Did she really not want me anymore? Was I not good enough?

Rosalie looked intently into my eyes.

"Good girl?" she asked.

"Yes?" I asked back. I didn't know if I was, or if I were anymore in her eyes, and it hurt that she stopped me.

"Good girl," she asserted. "Put away the paddle."

"I ... yes," I said obediently.

She let go of my shoulders and stepped back, and I scampered out of the kitchen, confused, not knowing what she wanted, or if she didn't want me now.

I went down the stairs, but I felt something.

I looked up, and Rosalie was standing there, at the top of the stairs, watching me.

I cringed.

A three-year-old. She called me a three-year-old who couldn't go up or down steps without falling down. She probably thought I wasn't good enough to ... to ...

To worship her, anymore. Was she done with me? On her birthday? Was she...

"Careful," she whispered.

I cringed again, and went down to the rec room, putting away the paddle, and came back to the stairs.

Rosalie was still at the top, still waiting. Still watching me.

I suddenly felt I couldn't be careful enough, and I was almost petrified, scared to go up the stairs.

People walk up stairs.

I slunk up them, my face ashen, my mind awhirl, my hand unsteady on the railing.

I faced her at the top of the stairs, and in this whole big house, I felt crowded and cornered.

Rosalie waved to the kitchen, so I scurried there, afraid of her critical gaze, afraid she might find another fault to punish me or to expel me now.

I just couldn't ...

I just couldn't function around that thought.

Earlier I thought I could be brave and walk away from her and her ride, but now that she threatened to kick me out of her car on my naked ass ... I felt ...

I felt terrified that she was thinking about that right now.

Rosalie glided into the kitchen. "Hop up on the counter, Bella. Let's get you taken care of."

Oh. I hopped. Not very gracefully, but I somehow managed. The counters were kinda ... high.

Rosalie had always shaved me in her private bath, and there she could position me any way she wanted me, so I didn't have to do anything, just ... endure it, and not embarrass myself, as I sometimes did.

Okay, Rosalie's intense concentration as she shaved me? Sometimes her attention ... well, sometimes my body responded to that. It wasn't like I was, you know, like, wanting to ...

Oh, never mind!

But here, today, everything was different.

"No, wait," she said suddenly, "where are your panties?"

"Um," I said, "in my backpack?" I asked carefully.

"Well, go fetch them, Bella; run along!"

I hopped down from the counter and rushed to my backpack... you know, where I had dropped it by the door to the garage? Because Rosalie had ... you know ... attacked me?

That backpack.

I got it.

Wait.

It was unzipped.

That's odd. The panties were there in my little ziplock bag but ...

... but my notebooks weren't.

I did my homework in my turquoise notebook, so I would give that to Rosalie for her to check my work, but my black notebook ... where I kept my ... notes.

My private notes.

Hm. This could be ... bad.

I brought my backpack, taking the ziplock with my panties.

"Um," I said, "um, here're my panties, Rosalie, but ..."

Rosalie held out my notebooks.

"Um," I said.

"I checked your work," she said. "It was good."

"Oh, ..." I said, "did you ..."

"Very good."

_Very_ good? Rosalie had never said my work was _very_ good. It was either good, or I got my ass literally handed to me as she pointed out each one of my mistakes, one-by-one. I learned to check, then double-check my homework before Rosalie got to it. It cut back on the number of spanks, sometimes significantly.

But ... _very_ good?

"Oh," I said flustered as I put away the notebooks back in to my backpack quickly, hiding them from her sight.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

"Um ..." I stuttered.

"It is polite to say 'thank you' when complimented," Rosalie cut in.

"Thank you, Rosalie," I said quickly, blushing, "Thank you. Um, but did you ..."

I gulped, suddenly losing my nerve.

"Did I what?" she demanded coldly, impatient for me to get to the point.

"Um, did you ... know I got a poem published in the yearbook when I was in the ninth grade?"

I changed tracks so fast, my own head was spinning. I did not even whisper the thought in my head now: _did you read what's in my black notebook?_

I didn't even think that thought, nor dare to ask that question.

Because, obviously, if she did, I'd be dead and served as shish kabobs right now, after Rosalie sliced and diced me and cooked the pieces of meat that used to be me on the grill on her deck.

You see, I write stories. They're stories about this poor girl, you see, and this really rich girl, who's like way popular, and ...

And all that, and ...

So if she did read that, then I wouldn't have to ask the question, because there wouldn't be witnesses to tell what had happened to me.

And if she _didn't_ read that, then I didn't need to let her think along those lines.

We could talk about poetry. Poetry was safe.

"Huh," Rosalie said, noncommittally.

"Yeah," I added quickly, "it was like published in a magazine, too ... so it was ..."

I stopped. Would it be boasting to say my own poem was good?

Yes, it would.

I didn't have anything else to say.

"Good, was it?" Rosalie asked, finishing what I couldn't.

"Yeah, I guess ..." I looked away.

"You guess at a lot of things," Rosalie observed, displeased.

I winced. "Sorry," I said.

"... and apologize a lot, too." She added, further displeased.

"Sor..." I bit my lip before the word could come all the way out.

Rosalie glared, and then smirked.

"So," she said, "miss Good-poetess, were you thinking about me today at school?"

I looked away. "Yes," I whispered.

No sense in stalling, nor in lying. She would see, and smell, the evidence soon enough.

It was a daily ritual now.

"Well, we'll see about that," she purred.

I sighed, and opened up the ziplock bag, holding the evidence out to her, panties folded open, drying stain obvious in the crotch.

Rosalie brushed then held her hair back. Of course, she wouldn't touch my dirty underwear ... who did I think she was, some maid or garbage person?

I had to hold my own panties out in the open for her to examine.

She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes, savoring the aroma, as she had savored her specialty yogurt earlier, just as she savored the specialty soaps she bought for herself, and for me.

Just as she savored everything in the world: she controlled everything around her, and, as far as she was concerned, she owned it all.

So why not savor my panties? They were hers. Really. She bought them for me.

"Ah," she sighed happily. "Yes, ..." she said hesitantly. "But I'm not sure, Bella, _did_ you think about me in school?"

I nodded my head, ashamed.

It was like: I was caught doing a very, very bad thing, and she had me, right there, red-handed and red-faced.

"Check, Bella," she said, relishing the moment. "Check and tell me."

I sighed and brought the panties to my nose.

Yuppers. I had been thinking about her. No mistake there.

But I had to breathe me in, deeply, you see.

Because if I didn't, she would grab my hand, and force my panties into my face with my own hand until she was satisfied that not only that I couldn't hold my breath anymore, but that I had filled my lungs ...

... with my own ... yeah, ... musk.

I breathed me in, and made one-hundred percent sure that I had been thinking of her in school.

I dropped my hand from my face, as I dropped my eyes. "Yes, Rosalie, I was thinking of you in school."

"Uh, huh," Rosalie said. "Thought so, but I wasn't sure."

Okay, Bella, _don't_ think _'yeah, right!' Do NOT _think that!

Rosalie saw me trying not to think that.

I cringed, terrified.

"Bella, ..." Her voice was low and dangerous.

"Yes?" I whimpered, backing away cautiously.

_WHAM!_

Okay, _seriously!_ Does that God-damn refrigerator have to be right behind me _every frikkin time _Rosalie slams me against something in the kitchen?

Well, that's not true, actually, ... there is the table ... and the floor ... and the counter as she fucks my ass ... and ... the pantry, too. She hasn't fucked me _in_ the pantry, yet, but ...

... But anyway.

"Are you thinking of me now?" she demanded.

Her purr was sultry and ... _sexy ..._ and so fucking hot.

"Um, ..." I said.

Honestly, I _wasn't_ thinking of her, I was thinking more about surviving the onslaught to come of her reading my thoughts, but now she put it that way, and put it _in_ that _particular_ way of asking me, then ... well ...

God damn you, Rosalie Hale, for turning me on when I'm scared to death of you.

"... yes," I admitted weakly.

If I said anything else, she would just have to check, wouldn't she? And then make sure that if I _wasn't_ thinking of her, she'd work me up until I _was._ She just always had to be right.

With Rosalie Hale, honesty is the best policy. Take what I say from personal experience.

She smirked at me. "I _knew_ it, thinking of me as you're sniffing your own panties, you dirty little slut."

_And_ she had to be smug about it, too, didn't she? Even though I was _not_ doing that, for the record, but _you_ try telling her that, with evidence to the contrary. That is, try telling her that _and living._

But before I could react or say anything, she just physically slid me off the fridge to the counter and ... _lifted_ me up onto it, as easy as you please.

Her strength was inhuman. Cheerleader, you know? They're always throwing each other up into the air into triple flips or whatever and catching each other, and they're all muscle mass, svelte, you know? and strong as ... I don't know, a football player. A fucking hot, slim football player. Like.

You take on a cheerleader, you lose. It's that simple.

And they travel in packs, too, so you're just so fucked when you try to mess with one of them because they will mess you the fuck up, and not in the good way.

Just a piece of Bella-advice, but _not_ from personal experience, thank God!

"Okay, sweetie, ..." she said sweetly, now completely sure she had me anyway she wanted me.

Oh, and never wrestle with Rosalie Hale. Voluntarily, that is. Unless you like eating dirt as you say, 'Auntie' over and over again, hoping that this time she decides not to twist your arm right off. That's just an oh-by-the-way.

Did I say 'anyway she wanted me'?

Yeah ...

"... let's get you cleaned up."

She reached for the razor, and I sucked in my breath.

How come everything with her is this life-and-death experience?

...

"Baby," she scolded, "you have to give yourself to me."

"Yeah," I said.

Like, _duh, yeah,_ as she shaved me. Like I _couldn't _give myself to her. Seriously!

"I'm serious," she said seriously. "You keep tensing up like this, you're gonna jerk, and I'm gonna cut you, badly, so ... just relax, okay?"

"Okay," I said weakly.

Yeah, but ... 'relax' around Rosalie Hale?

I ... tried to relax.

She sighed.

Her hand was resting, lightly, on my stomach, her shaving hand, poised, to slice my cunt into ribbons, I guess. She had lathered me up and started shaving, but ... it was cold, the blade, on my skin, and it tickled, sometimes, and other times it was ...

And my skin dimpled wherever she touched me. My tummy was super tight, and empty, and my legs were ... they had this vise grip on her, and I tried to relax, I did, but ...

And then there was the object of Rosalie's attention.

My cunt did not exist. I mean, there was no evidence of it, as it hid, the clam in its shell.

Rosalie was not pleased.

But she was patient. She was infinitely patient. She said she was going to shave me, so she was going to shave me. And that was that.

I was actually waiting for her to apply general anesthesia so she could surgically remove my cunt and shave it to her perfect demands without tense little me interfering with what she had to do.

"Think of something else, sweetie," she said, focusing on my slit, seeing the best angle for attack, perhaps?

My slit hid more. I have a very shy cunt. Rosalie like that sometimes. She thinks that it's so _cute._ I don't think she was thinking _'cute' _right now, though.

"Like what?" I asked helplessly.

"You were thinking of me at school?" she asked.

"Yes." Of course I was. I had evidence still balled up in my hand.

"When?" she asked. "Where?"

"In ... in the potty ..." I said.

She glanced up at me in smirked. "'Potty'?" she asked.

"Um..."

"Did you touch yourself in the potty, Bella?" she asked, obviously loving my word for the little girls' room.

Um, is 'little girls' room' Rosalie-funny, too? I think she'd think it would be.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Fingers rubbing the outside of your panties?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, then added a quiet, "... at first."

"Uh, huh," she said, thoughtfully, then she pursued, "and then?"

"... and then ..." I looked away, and I felt the razor touch me, lightly, and then slide over my sink, caressing me.

It.

Felt.

So.

Good.

"Sh, shh," she said softly. "And then ...?"

"A-and th-then, I was ... touching myself ... there," I admitted, not looking at her nor at what she was doing.

"Did you cum?" she asked very quietly.

"No," I said.

"Uh, huh," she said. "Was it hard to stop yourself?"

"N-not really ... I ..." I stopped.

I don't want to die, and I knew she'd kill me, or worse, if I disobeyed her. And ... I was getting better at all this. I mean, she required I think of her, every day, which was easy. I mean, how couldn't I? And she required proof. That wasn't hard, either. That was easy, in fact. What was hard, at first, was stopping. That was really hard at first.

But ... Rosalie Hale takes care of her own, and she is a hard-ass and a half, no shit, but ... she's taken care of me, every day, and I knew I had to stop myself when I was by myself, to save myself for her, for her pleasure, and she would reward me for pleasuring her and obeying her, and she did.

She did, sometimes often..._ly._

So I really, really had no complaints in the ... 'satisfied' department. I could even complain I got _too_ much attention, but that was unthinkable. 'Uh, Rosalie, I'd like to skip this orgasm I'm begging you for, if that's okay with you.'

That'd fly... like a lead balloon. And then there's the chance she'd take me up on that. I mean, there's this whole, like, scene, right? And some people get their kicks off of bringing a girl like me to the edge, over and over, week after week after ... month, and not once giving her that sweet, savage release.

I did _not_ want to give Rosalie ideas along those lines, no, thank you. Holding myself off during school was bad enough, and the weekends were now unbearable, where I was actually almost _jumping_ out of bed Monday mornings, almost on-edge waiting for Rosalie to show up, because then I knew it would be eight or so more hours before we got to her house, and she ... yeah.

That.

Mom hasn't noticed ... yet. Or if she has, she hasn't said anything, thank God, because this conversation? Not one I'm looking forward to.

"Uh, huh," she said noncommittally, reading my every thought, or at least pleased with my absolute obedience.

Like I could do anything else.

"Did you think of me just there in the bathroom? Or at other times, too?" she continued both her questions and her shaving my soft, supple, obedient little cunt.

"In class," I gasped. "In class."

"Which one?" she asked. "All of them?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Yes, you do," she came right back.

I sighed. "Mostly ..." I said shyly. "Mostly in math and comp sci class, I guess."

"Really?" she asked, surprised. "'Cause of the teachers?"

"Huh?" I blinked. "No. No way."

The math and the science teachers were smart and cute. Some of the guys crushed on them.

"Then why?" she asked.

"Boring." I said. "Hard. My mind ... drifts and ... I think of you."

I blushed at my own admission.

Rosalie ignored it, concentrating on my cunt and the razor.

"Do you touch yourself in class?"

_"What?"_ I asked shocked. "No! No, I don't. No."

"Hm," she frowned, disappointed.

I think she was disappointed that I tightened up when she asked me that. I think that's why I felt the razor leave me before she asked that question.

"Why not?"

She was looking at me.

"'Cause if I got caught ..."

"You think the teachers'd call you out on that?"

She was looking at me intently.

"Well, that, too, but ..."

"'But' ...?"

She left her question hanging.

I looked away. "And I'd be embarrassed, Rosalie. I'd just die, that's all. I'd just die."

"Yeah," she said quietly.

There was the gym locker room incident, me puking and fainting, and because why? And now the school nurse has this idea that I go walking around everywhere commando, when I don't, not anymore, that is, but I'm just waiting for her to show up in one of my classes one day with my counselor or the vice principal or school security or ... the police, and they'd strip me right fucking there, in front of everybody, to find, that, nope, I was indeed wearing panties, but, 'uh, huh, look at how wet they are!' and, 'oh, Bella, do you need a diaper? because what is on your seat is unsanitary, and we do have a stock of Depends in supply...'

Yeah. Great. Just line me up against the wall and open fire, please, huh?

"You embarrassed of me?" she asked severely.

"No," I said.

Who could be embarrassed of her?

"Then ...?"

"I'm just embarrassed," I said ... embarrassedly. "I'm just embarrassed of ... of me, I guess."

"Of your body?" she asked.

"Yeah ..." I said sadly. That, too. My body, my whole fucking life.

I'm embarrassed of me.

"There's more to your 'yeah,' than what you're saying, Bella," Rosalie said mildly.

She had returned to her task at hand, shaving me.

I guess when I'm sad, I'm relaxed, ... sometimes.

"Yeah," I said sadly.

"I'm not embarrassed of you," she said, factually.

And the thing was, I saw that. She wasn't embarrassed of me. She wasn't ashamed of me. In fact, she _defended _me when somebody, one of her other friends or one of her cheerleader buddies, wanted to pick on the weak, nerdy kid. She didn't take shit, and she didn't let shit happen in front of her, not to me, and, not to any of her friends. She was like that. Even to me.

And I just didn't ... get that.

If I were her, I'd be like, 'get away from me, you freak!' but she was like ... not like that.

She was like, 'you can hang with me.'

Like ...

Like I don't know what like. I had no experience in my life of someone taking me under her wing like that. It was amazing and crazy and heady and like a really high high that didn't seem to crash, ever. I mean, I kept waiting for it to, and, day after day, it didn't.

Day after day, Rosalie didn't turn to me and say 'Ha, ha! Just kidding, loser; get the fuck out of my sight!' and laugh at me with all of her friends laughing at me and pointing at me, the sucker who had bought it, so completely as to really believe it.

I kept waiting for it to happen, though, every day.

And it kept ... didn't-...ing. You know? It kept not-..ing happening.

You get what I mean.

"I ... know." I said, not even believing my own voice. Not even believing what I knew, and what I saw from her every day.

Rosalie Hale was like ... royalty. She was like ... loyalty, too. You're hers, and by God, you _stayed_ hers ...

Until she threw your naked ass out of her car in the trailer park.

"I'm just ... I'm just afraid, Rosalie," I said.

"Sh, sh, sh, Bella, sh," she shushed soothingly, trying to relax me.

She was almost done. But 'almost' isn't a word in Rosalie's vocabulary. She's either done or she's not done, and if she's not done, she'll keep at it until she's done.

She's fucking banzai that way. People just parted like the Red Sea when she was on a mission.

And she was on the warpath ...

Fuck, I didn't even want to think about that. _Nuclear bombs_ were scared of her, then!

"I ..." I said. "I mean, did you mean that ... earlier? I mean, you'd kick my ass out and just ... leave me?"

Rosalie concentrated on her work.

But then she sighed.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I meant what I said. I always do, Bella. You fuck with me ... _anybody'd_ fuck with me, well, you'll get it back in spades. Big time. I'd carry your ass back to your house, dragging you by your hair if I had to, and fucking leave your ass there, but ... not forever. I'd give you a time-out and cool off, but ..."

She shrugged.

"How ... how long a time-out?" I ventured.

She frowned. "Depends on how much you'd piss me off, Bella. But you'd really have to piss me off, you'd really have to want to, so let's just not find out, either of us, okay?"

"O-o-okay," I said.

I looked down at her.

Again. I was looking down at her as she shaved me. That just struck me, but I didn't notice that until just now, because until right now, she wasn't ... I mean until now she was _the_ Rosalie Hale, so in control of everything.

But just now ... she seemed a little ... smaller, as if there were some things in this world that she couldn't control and that she didn't like.

Like her own rules. She said she'd kick me right out of her SUV, and she would if I pissed her off enough. And I believed her. But I also saw that she wouldn't like it. Like she wouldn't like breaking her own word and beating the piss out of me today.

But both were up to me. If I pissed her off, if I was a cunt and wanted to fuck with her, ...

She'd fuck right back, in spades.

And not in the good way.

"Okay," she said. "All done, now lemme check you."

I don't know if she said 'okay' to agree with me agreeing with her, or if she were just saying okay.

She got a warm washcloth and lightly stroked my pussy.

God, her soft touch was just so ...

I sighed.

Then she got a mug and poured water over me... I mean, over what was my lathered up area ... you know: kinda in between the hips. Yeah.

It dribbled onto the floor. I'd have to remember to clean that up later.

"Now," Rosalie said, and bent down, leaning into me, and ...

She started to rub her face, slowly, gently, against my cunt.

I blew out a long, long sigh as I luxuriated in the feeling. I felt my head go back and my eyes close.

Rosalie rubbed her face, first one way, then the other, and my cunt lips opened for her, and she put her face, her nose, her lips right in there, right against me.

_"Oh, God!"_ I whispered, and I just floated in the feeling.

Her lips were opened, breathing me in, and feeling me, and she felt so smooth against me, and ... I think I felt the same way: just skin on skin.

Then ...

Her tongue.

"Uh," I sighed.

She was kissing me, soft, open-mouthed kisses, and her tongue was trailing along my outer lips, testing, tasting, and then poking in and probing me ... inside.

I wanted to grab her head and mash her hard against me and cum all over her face.

But I didn't. I just sat there on her countertop and let her rub her face against me, slowly, steadily, and just rested there, my legs open to her, and me, an offering for her to test, to taste, to — _please, Oh, God!_ — to nibble on if she wanted to.

"There!" she said, pleased with her handiwork, and pulled away. "Nice and smooth!"

I groaned at her sudden absence: the empty feeling, inside, and the removal of her face on me, outside, just so painful.

Rosalie snickered.

I sighed sadly and opened my eyes.

Her face had a ... shine to it. Bleck! So embarrassing! My evidence was so ... evident on her.

"Now, you are all worked up, young lady!"

Rosalie pointed an imperious finger at me.

"Yes, I am," I admitted shyly ... but a little bit hopefully, too.

I mean, now that she saw that, what was she going to do about it, huh? I mean, _she's_ the one who worked me up, and she always finished what she started, so ... you know?

"Not like that, you perv!" she scolded, but delight was dancing in her eyes — she just so loved to work me up. "What I _meant_ was that you are so wound tight, Bella. Seriously, it was nearly impossible to get you taken care of! _That's_ was I meant, not your pervy little 'I'm so worked up, sex me, Rosalie,' worked-up, you fuck-slut. I swear, Bella, your mind is so in the gutter!"

I pouted. It's not like I could help it, or anything.

And it's not like she didn't like me that way. I gave her my repentant eyes.

... I don't know, maybe the sympathy angle would work this time. It never has, but here's hoping.

Rosalie smirked.

It didn't work.

"Okay, down from the countertop, fair Rapunzel!" she commanded.

_Some_body was in a good mood, after being in a very, very bad mood. I'll have to remember that and let her shave me more often.

Rosalie hoisted me down from the countertop, and I was right there, right next to her, clean shaven, and she was right there, right next to me, in, literally, her birthday suit.

If I were ... braver, ... I would've thrown _her_ onto the table and had my way with her, I was that worked up.

But I'm not braver; I'm just me. And all I could do was hope that she would do that to me. The only thing I could do was lean into her as she supported me. My legs were a little bit wobbly, for some reason.

"You hungry?" she whispered solicitously into my ear.

"Yes, ..." I whispered back. I don't know why we were whispering. "A little." I added politely.

Rosalie sighed and pulled back, giving me a disapproving look. "'A little'?" she demanded.

I blushed. What was wrong with that? "Yeah," I said, "I'm hungry, a little bit."

Her eyes narrowed. "So that means you can wait, then?"

"Yes," I said.

I looked down. I was hungry. But I could wait. There've been days — _days _— that I haven't eaten. With Rosalie I've gotten used to eating more and eating every day, but I guess she was angry at me for saying 'a little.' I guess I wasn't supposed to say that, like I wasn't supposed to say, 'I guess.'

"Good," she said coolly, "because I have some designs on you, little girl, that'll be uncomfy for you with a full tummy. So, I want you to run along upstairs. I want you to weigh yourself, miss 'a little hungry,' then lie on my bed, prone. I'll come join you when you're ready. We clear?"

"Um," I said, not very clear. "Did you want me to tie myself down on the bed?"

She had straps, hidden, on her bed posts.

Yes, she has a four-poster bed.

And we had ... well, she liked me tied down on her bed when she ... you know, went wild on me. The first few times she dragged me upstairs and sat on me as she grabbed each limb and tied me down by force. It drove her insane with lust, me struggling, trying to free myself as she restrained me further and further. I almost had heart attacks as I panicked. And her fucking me as I struggled to get free?

Those were some really wild rides.

But then it got to the point that, yup, I'm on the bed, because she threw me on it, and, yep, there was no way I was gonna get free until she's good and done with me, so I kinda ... went along with it after a while.

And now it's to the point where I secure my legs and one arm for her, and I have my other arm ready, so she can just tighten the straps in place there and get right down to business.

That _really_ turns her on: me, mostly secured, and her, just raring to go.

So, when she does tighten the strap around my wrist, and I'm bound on her bed?

It's game on. It's _so_ game on.

And what do I do, you wonder, while she's ... well, gaming on?

Lie there and take it, like, what else can I do?

Lying there and taking it is a lot harder than you'd think it be, because it's like this whole body work-out. And then there's the whole mental aspect of it, where you want to get free, but you can't, and you want to hide or pull back, but you can't. And then ... you want more.

And she is just so ... giving — do you know what I mean? — when I'm begging for more.

I wouldn't mind a little lying there and taking it right about now. Not at all.

"Nah, not now," Rosalie said easily.

I pouted.

She snorted a small laugh. "Baby," she said, "you have supper to cook, and there's going to be an army to feed. I do not need you falling asleep then, I need you awake and alert."

"Oh," I said, disappointed. Yeah. Supper. But ... 'an army'?

"We having company over tonight for supper?" ... and would I have to be ... 'presentable' ... like, with me wearing clothes at all? Or would I be part of supper's 'presentation'?

We never had had dinner guests. I didn't know what she expected of me ... or if or how I would be able to handle what I hoped her expectations weren't.

But what I feared they were.

_"'We_ having company over' as in you think this is your house too now, Bella?" Rosalie demanded harshly.

_"What?" _I said shocked. "No, no, no! I was just ..."

"You think," she snarled, "since I _let_ you come over _my_ house and feed you, you now _own_ anything here, do ya, Bella, huh? _Do you?"_

"No, Rosalie, please, I didn't mean that at all, I was just saying that were we ..."

I stopped.

Rosalie was _laughing at me!_

"Oh, Bella! You really fell for the 'me-Rosalie-angry'-thing, didn't you? You are just too cute for words!" she sighed happily, and _mussed my hair AGAIN!_

_Grrrr!_ But besides the fact that she embarrassed me with the 'this is my house' thing, she also was making me all angry and all shy with the hair-mussing thing, too!

It's like I have these buttons to press that get a reaction out of me, and Rosalie knows every button and exactly how to press them! It's like totally one-sided no fair and that's just wrong in my book!

"Well," I said weakly, humbly, "you said I'd be feeding an army so I just wanted to know what that meant is all. I mean, like, is it for your party tomorrow, or something?"

If it were for her party, I think she's right: an army would be small for the birthday bash she was going to be having with her friends.

Her rich friends. Her real friends.

I hadn't been invited.

If it were for her party, I'd be up all night, slaving away over her stove, and that's a fact. So ...

So I guess it was prudent of her, not to tire me out like that.

Wonderful. Not getting any and worked like a slave all night long.

But it is her birthday, so I guess ... I guess that's what she wants.

Her surprised voice surprised me out of my sad reverie. "No, silly! That's catered, of course! Really, Bella! You? Do all that?"

"Oh," I said, surprised and relieved, "so, but why ..."

"Bella," Rosalie's voice was stern.

"Yes?" I said humbly.

"I have a question for you: why are you asking me why-questions and, more importantly, why aren't you being a good little girl and running up the stairs right now and doing what I told you to do?"

"Oh," I said, turning white, and I ran.

And I ran right back.

"Um, Rosalie?"

"Lemme guess," she sighed, "another question."

"Um, yes, please?" I said shyly.

"What is it?"

She was business-like now. Her cheerful mood was running thin.

But I had to know.

"Um, when you said, 'lie prone' ... does that mean on my tummy or on my back, because I don't remember what 'prone' means and ..."

"Bella." Rosalie glowered.

"Yes?" I said humbly. Here it comes. I cringed.

"Good little girls lie prone when they're told to," she lectured, then her voice turned menacing: "Very, very bad little girls lie supine when they're told to lie prone. Which one are you?"

Rosalie's stare was deep, penetrating, cold, and demanding.

"I... I want to be good, Rosalie, please," I whispered, not being able to look at her.

Her hand came out to my chin, forcing my eyes to hers.

"So, be good then," she commanded.

"But I ... but I don't know what's prone is ..." I winced. _Bad grammar!_ I scolded myself. Rosalie hates that. "I mean, which way I should ..."

Cold. "Who's problem is that, Bella, that you don't know that, yours, or mine?"

"M-m-mine." I gasped.

Her eyes were completely blank, unreadable.

"So, who's fault is it going to be when I come upstairs and you're lying supine when I told you to lie prone on the bed?"

I bit my lip. "Mine," I said softly, "mine, Rosalie."

Her hand gave my chin a little shove.

"Go," she commanded.

"I ..." I said.

"Bella," ... the temperature dropped twenty-five degrees in the kitchen, I think. "Run."

I ran.

_"Carefully!"_ Rosalie called out angrily from the kitchen.

I ran up the stairs. Carefully.

* * *

**A/N: **_Arrrg! This_ was _supposed_ to be the "An Army" chapter, but _noooo!_ It's already _way_ too long, and poor Bella hasn't even cooked supper for that 'army' (whatever it is) nor eaten yet! _Jeez! AND _there's the whole birthday present thing that Bella has to ... um, what's the right word here? ... _'deal'_ with. Like, where's she going to get a suitable birthday present for Rosalie and how she's going to pay for it? ... _I mean 'pay for it' with __money__, you pervs!_

So there's all that. AND 'Gamma.'

Oh, yeah. 'Gamma.'

_AND SO!_ But I have a question for you, my dears, if Rosalie told _you_ to go upstairs to her bed and told you to lie prone like a good little girl, what would you do? _AND DON'T GOOGLE IT!_ _Bella_ doesn't have access to google, and Rosalie would so take away your phone. She does _not_ like you playing angry birds when she's ... 'talking' with you.

Your answer (in your review) _might_ affect how Bella's lying down (on Rosalie's bed ... happy-place-sigh!) and _might_ affect Rosalie's mood, and her ability to keep her promise, and control her ... temper and her ... primitive animalistic ... um ... reaction ... in the next chapter.

So, prone or supine? Or as Bella puts it, and not in any particular order: tummy or back?


	8. Prone

**Chapter epilogue: **So. Prone. Rosalie wants me prone on her bed _NOW,_ or she'll serve me up on a platter. Be nice to know what 'prone' means, but that's been made clear to me that's my problem, not hers. I'm Bella Swan, and I'm lying prone in Rosalie's bed, or I hope to God that I am! Oh, sh!t, here she comes now. Wait. Geddit? Here she 'comes'! Ba-dum-_cha! _Sigh. You don't get it.

* * *

One-oh-four. I looked down at the scale, with its treacherous numbers, and knew one thing: Rosalie Hale was going to kill me.

That first day I stepped on the scale ... that was the scariest. Rosalie got very quiet when she saw two digits: ninety-six.

She took out her phone and looked it up. Girl, eighteen years of age (wrong age, but I wasn't asked, so I didn't offer anything), five-four height.

Ideal weight: one-twenty-one. Acceptable range: one-ten to one-fourty-six.

My weight wasn't 'acceptable.'

Rosalie didn't look pleased.

From that day on, every day thereafter, I was on the scales. After spending time with her, actually eating lunch in the cafeteria, instead of looking at everybody else's, and actually eating supper at her house (hand-fed to me, of course), instead of going to bed hungry, skipping the nonexistent supper, my weight started to go back up, and Rosalie became less grave. When my weight started to head toward the acceptable range, I think I actually saw her smile.

Yesterday, I weighed in at one-oh-six. Today I'm two pounds less.

I haven't been two pounds less yet. And there was no way to hide this: she was going to take out her little black notebook, ask my weight, and enter it in the next column and chart it.

Fucking chart it. Then draw the line, and see it go ... not up, toward the ideal weight, but down, ... away from it, back toward unacceptably low.

I look at food, and I ... lose weight. Some girls would be jealous of me.

I wouldn't be. Because I just knew it, Rosalie Hale was gonna get that look on her face and ...

"Bella."

I fucking screamed.

It was Rosalie, standing right next to me.

Okay, like, _really! _How does she do it? How does she go up the stairs and not make clunk-clunk-clunking noises like I do? She's a cheerleader, for God's sake! She's supposed to make a ton of noise, right? Not fucking sneak up on you like a ninja or something.

And that's when the world went _WHAM!_ ... again.

Okay, I'm renaming myself to Bella, the rag-doll, for God's sake. I just decided that.

Rosalie had slammed me up against the wall, her hand around my neck.

Fuck, she saw the numbers. Fuck, I'm so dead.

She regarded me with cold, calculating eyes.

I whimpered.

"Kiss me," she said softly.

Uh, okay ... um, ... what?

She leaned in and kissed me ... gently.

I sighed. I almost peed with relief. She wasn't killing me.

Not just yet.

She opened my mouth with hers, and her tongue went in, exploring.

And her other hand, her left hand went down and in between us, and started gently massaging the outer lips of my cunt.

I moaned into her mouth.

She pulled back slightly. "Kiss me," she commanded softly.

"Yes," I sighed, and she kissed me, gently rubbing my cunt.

She kissed my cheeks with soft, hungry, open-mouthed kisses, and I kissed back.

And that's when I tasted myself on her cheeks.

And she kept kissing me, and she was licking my face, so I had to lick her back, I had to! And my whole body was taut with need, kissing her back, licking myself off her face, wanting her so badly.

I whimpered as I kissed her, so totally attuned to wanting her.

She pulled back, looking into my hooded eyes with her smoldering ones, and stated the obvious.

"You _want_ me," she growled possessively.

"Yes," I whimpered.

Then I whined desperately. Her middle finger had started sliding up and down my entrance, and my cunt was making wet, wanting sounds as her finger teased but did not please.

She brought her hand away from my now poor, lonely cunt to my face, and she put her finger into my mouth.

I sucked. I sucked me on her finger back into me. I sucked her finger like it was the only thing I could do, and she watched me the whole time, glaring, staring, glowering and wanton.

She pulled her finger out and pulled back, her hand, firmly on my neck.

_"Slut,"_ she smoldered.

My knees got weak, and I would have collapsed if she weren't holding me up against the wall.

"Listen to me now," she ordered. "I want you to go to my bed, right now, and lie on it, prone, and wait for me to ... take care of you, Bella. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I whimpered, but inside, I was thinking: _oh, shit: 'prone'! _and _I'm so dead._

She didn't let me go. Her left hand returned to my cunt.

"Oh, and Bella?" she said.

"Yes?" I answered, looking into her smoldering eyes, feeling her hand lightly brush my cunt.

"Put a pillow under your cunt. I want that ass raised and ready for me, you understand?"

I said, "yes," quietly, but I nearly fainted with gratitude.

Rosalie was giving me the answer with her command. Cunt down, ass high. Prone: face down, on my tummy.

She let me go, and I ran on wobbly legs toward her room.

"Bella."

I froze.

Rosalie silently came around me and faced me again, looking like God, herself: imposing and terrifying.

She put her hand on my cunt again, lightly.

"I like your honey, and I'm going to suck every drop of it out of your sweet little honey pot, so don't be rubbing on _my God-damn pillow, _dripping your cunt juice all over it, you horny slut. I put my head on my pillow to sleep, so I don't need it soggy and squish-squishing tonight, and I _most definitely do not_ need my hair all skanky with your slutty cunt drool in the morning, you got me?"

"Yes," I whimpered.

Okay, but ... Rosalie Hale ... 'taking care of me' with my cunt on her pillow and me _not_ ... you know ...

Okay, let me tell you something about me: when I let go, I don't know about you, but when I let go, I _let go, _and it's like the dam breaking.

I guess I really am a dyke ... you know? Holding back all that water until it all bursts out?

And her pillow sponging all that up?

I'm so dead.

She grabbed my neck, smiling evilly at my predicament, and _threw_ me into her room. I landed on her bed in a heap, and grabbed her big, fluffy pillow, well, one of them, anyway, and quickly put it under ... me.

I was already dripping. Rosalie had made quite sure of that, hadn't she.

Rosalie walked right past me into her private bath. I heard the tap going and water splashing. I looked. She was washing her face.

_Fuck._ That turned me on more. I just knew she was washing her face of my dirty leavings so she could ...

Put her face right back into my 'honey pot,' and get her face all messy again licking up that honey ... from me.

Fuck. I'm leaking.

"Here I come, little girl."

She didn't have to announce that. She had washed herself with her soap, and her rose scent permeated the room as she entered. I would've have known, even if I didn't hear her. I could feel her presence. I could smell her, and it wasn't sickly sweet or cloying. It was a subtle rose scent. But ...

It was like I was one of Pavlov's dogs. The scent preceded her, but my body became attuned and ready for her, for whatever she wanted to do to me, my muscles tensed up, contracting, preparing my body to be fucked ...

And my cunt sent out its own scent to her, sending her a very clear message for my whole body: _fucking take me. Please!_

I couldn't help it. It was her scent and her commanding presence, and my body submitted itself to her whims and her desires. My body was a flower to her Sun, and it opened itself to her and leaned toward whichever direction she lay. I mean, was. I mean, is. I mean, being. _I mean what-fucking-ever I mean! Jeez!_

But ... 'Here I come,' she said. Ha-ha, so funny! You get the joke? Here she comes, and here I'll cum, too... if she'll let me.

Oh, God, please let her let me! _Please!_

She came into the room, glowering and hungry, a lioness ready to eat a little lamb.

I whimpered, a little lamb, about to be eaten by the sleek, powerful lioness, ... no: _wanting_ to be eaten by her! And I drooled a little bit more. And not just from my mouth.

Her pillow got wet. No: wet_ter._

I'm _so_ dead.

* * *

**A/N:** Ugh! Or should I say, 'Yay!' So, yeah: _prone._ Did any of you notice that the word 'p-r-o-n-e' (with the silent-'e') spells a very different ... well, actually, in this case, very _similar_ word? Like 'p-r-0-n'? Did you notice that? Not that there's any similarity here in _this_ chapter, amirite? It's just a little anecdote of a lioness in her den with a wee little lamb, that's all, right? The lion(ess) lying down with the lamb, and all that sweet and innocent imagery I've tapped into now in my writing. Innocuous stuff like that.

So. Yah. That. Anyway. So now that little fly Bella is in kiss-of-the-spyder-Rosalie's web (wait, is that how you spell 'bed'? Me confused) ... wazza gonna happen next?

I'm thinking, ... idk ...

Eh, never mind! I'll stop the teasing and channel my creative juicing ... _sh!t-o-darn! I meant to write 'juices!' 'Creative juices!'_ ... into the next chap, and then the next, and ... you know: et cetera.

But, you know, I did write this chap as soon as I published the last one (so that's why it's a 'chapter "epilogue"' at the beginning, and not the usual 'chapter summary'), 'cause I just couldn't ... I just couldn't ... the tension was too much for me (I do have a serious headache right now: four ibuprofen today so far, sad-face!) So I tacked it on as an epilogue, but then I thought, hey, no fair to Bella who has to guess, to die guessing this, so I let her stew until Rosalie, of all people, came and rescued her ... but rescued her in the Rosalie-way, of course.

Rosalie Hale doesn't do handouts, in case you didn't know.

Anyway. Tired. Dead tired, so idk what and when I'll be able to do the next chap, so enjoy these three, reread'm and analyze them with your mom's book club (I would _so love_ to hear their discussion around these chaps, eheh-eheh-eheh. Hey, Mom, why are your ears burning, huh? `phfina snickers). (uh, don't show my mom this, plz, huh? I would be so grounded for the next, idk, long time). Nighty-nighties!

`phfina goes _zzzzzzs!_


	9. Slut

**Chapter Summary: **God! I'm in heaven! And there's not even sex involved! Well, hardly any sex (**A/N**: Warning: tons of wowzer sex in this chapter) No, there isn't. (**A/N**: Yes, there is.) No, There ISN'T! ARRGH! I'm Bella Swan, and I'm arguing with the author now! (**A/N**: Sweetie, I didn't pick the chapter title, you did). Okay, like, _whatever!_ Stupid authors with their stupid God-complexes!

* * *

I sighed a long happy sigh.

"Rosalie Hale, I love you."

Rosalie snickered. She was on top of me. I was lying _prone, _I'll have you know, and she was massaging my back.

"Really?" she observed with warmth and humor, "I hadn't noticed."

She continued to rub my back with scented oils. Lavender-scented for me, of course, and warmed, and so, so _good._

_God, so good!_

My eyebrows creased. "When _did _you notice, Rosalie, actually?"

Rosalie's hands on my back were gentle, but at the same time, firm. They glided over my entire back, but knew exactly where the tension was, actually, where the tensions weres.

Um, 'were.'

And when her hands found a knot, they knew exactly what to do, and they were unforgiving, unyielding, un ... frikkin-believable how much they hurt me, like: _ow-ow-ow! _until the knot went away and there was only smoothness and calm where there was a knot of tension before.

She had been working on my back for a solid ... twenty minutes, I guess? so far, and her hands showed no sign, whatsoever of fatigue. She just kept going and going and going, and my stiff-as-a-board back just kept getting more and more supple.

I would recommend it to you, to, well, anyone, really, except for the small fact that if I saw Rosalie massaging someone else's back like she was doing to mine ...

I'd kill myself.

I tightened up, thinking about that, and Rosalie's hands felt that, right away, and adjusted, mercilessly massaging the sadness right out of me.

I swear they had minds of their own!

And Rosalie had one, too, in case you haven't noticed. She mulled over her answer, thinking about it as she pounded my back into a very peaceful submission.

I mean, though, seriously, I thought as Rosalie thought, where the hell did 'dumb blonde' come from? Have you met one? I haven't! Rosalie's like, I swear to God, a genius: she knows everything about everything and knows stuff that I don't even know that I don't even know, and never will know in my whole life.

And Rosalie's friend, Lauren? Ooh, I wince, thinking of her. She is one sharp, observant, motherfucker. You don't mess with her.

But both of them play the blonde card, too, and they're smart that way, too. They go up to somebody, and turn on the charm, and say, "Duh, yeah, I'm so lost, like! Can you get me into ..."

And the guy'd be like, dazzled! And there they are, back stage or at a top secrete military facility or in a bank vault with the crown jewels, wondering if it's 'like, is it okay, if I totally try these on, like?" and flash their innocent pretty eyes and walk right out with the crown jewels, just because they want to borrow them for prom, and that's, like, okay, right?

They can do that.

Blondes.

Or ... talk anyone they want into their beds. Rosalie had the ice queen rep, and Lauren was icy, too, but ...

I'll just leave it at that. Besides, I'm in no position to comment, as, come to find I have a rep now, too.

Never in my life I thought that'd happen. Fall for a girl, that is.

Never thought I'd fall for anyone, actually.

Can't afford it.

Rosalie kept massaging my back.

Never thought ... well, I mean: her. She could have any boy she wanted.

Why did she pick me?

Was it the challenge? I mean, Rosalie'd say to a boy, 'Okay, you're my bf, now.' and he'd be like, _bam!_ instantly the most popular boy in school, liked by his classmates, like, automatically.

Rosalie had that much cred.

He'd be _thanking_ her, _daily,_ if he had any sense in his head. And I'm talking like the quarterback, Jock Whitlock, or Emmett McCarty or any of those boys that the girls fell over each other, trying to snag already, just getting all giggly around them, but if Rosalie said, 'okay, you're mine now,' even they'd be honored. They'd _have_ to be.

But she just can't ask a girl out. That'd be ... wrong. Even with Tolland's PRIDE statement and everything. A girl could say to Rosalie, 'Nah, that's not my thing,' and she'd be okay to say that. Rosalie just can't destroy a girl because she won't be gay with her.

I mean, she could, but there'd be repercussions for her for doing that. And the favors she called in to do that ... people would know, right? And start to talk behind her back.

Popularity is a fickle thing. I never had to think about it, nor worry about it, because I was always the outsider.

But now I'm an insider. Because I'm Rosalie's girl.

Not officially, of course. She hasn't made an announcement.

She doesn't need to. That would cost her, and I'm not worth it.

See, with me, a nobody, she didn't need to ask, did she? Or, when she asked, I bet she knew the answer already. And actually, she didn't ask. I did. "Can I have a ride, Rosalie?"

And that gave her all the power to say 'yes' and make me hers.

So, she didn't need to tell everyone she owns me now. Besides, everybody knows. If Jess knows, _everybody_ knows. That's just how it works.

Well, I mean, everybody who's anybody. Jess never ... 'shared' stuff with me before. But nor did anybody. Nobody shares stuff with a nobody.

But Jess _has_ gotten more chummy with me recently, and even Lauren has turned on the defroster ... slightly. But I'm not blind, it's only because I'm walking in Rosalie's glow, and any attention I've gotten is just reflected glory from her.

Once Rosalie's interest dims, the other girls wouldn't even give me a backward glance.

I know that. And, I'm ... fine with that: I understand. That's just the way the world works, is all.

Besides, I can't afford to be bitter, nor to have regrets.

All I can do, now, is bask in Rosalie's reflected glory, and savor every second I giving now, and, pray that ... somehow, I don't shame her somehow when she casts me off, throwing me on my ass on the dirt in front of my ... 'house,' as she tried to figure out what to call the trailer me and mom are squatting in.

What? Did you think we bought that? With what money, pray tell?

"Are you finished having your conversation?" Rosalie's quiet voice interrupted my thoughts.

I thought about that. "I don't know what you mean, Rosalie," I said.

I wasn't having a conversation with anyone, I was just thinking about things, is all.

"Yes, you do," she said.

Okay, seriously? I mean: do I have to know everything I don't know?

I sighed.

"Are you finished," she explained patiently, "talking, talking, talking away to yourself now, and are ready to listen to my answer to _your_ question, Bella, or do you want to keep thinking about any and everything that comes into your mind your question raised?"

"Oh," I said. Then I added a repentant, "I'm listening now."

"Really?" she came right back.

"Yes," I said.

"You sure?" she demanded.

"Well, ..." I said.

Rosalie snickered, but her hands were gentle and caring as they kept rubbing the oil into my back.

I bit my lip.

"Ask away, again, Bella. I'm listening," she said patiently.

Why was she being so patient with me now?

"Well," I said, "do you know everything I was thinking just now?"

"Yup," she came right back.

"Okay, so," I said, "like, what was I thinking then?"

Rosalie's hands continued their ministrations. "You were thinking when and how did I know that you loved me, and does that mean I love you now, too, and what that means for us now, and long term, here and at school and then after school's over, and, loving, and being loved, how that changes the nature of our relationship."

Her hands, her wonderful, powerful, sweet and gentle hands, continued their soothing work on my back.

I thought about what she said.

"Well, ..." I said, "I didn't particularly think all _that ..."_ I began.

"Yes, you did," she said.

"Um"

She continued. "You just aren't brave enough to admit those thoughts, even to yourself, but that's what you were thinking, Bella."

"Actually," I said, "I also didn't think them through as well as you did either."

"Yes," she said dismissively. "You have the same problem everyone else does: they don't think things through nor clearly."

Okay, ouch.

"But the thoughts are still there, even if unfinished or unformed."

I thought about that.

She was right, of course, and again. Even as I tried to think about what she said, all I could think was: 'I thought about that,' but I didn't actually know what to think about what she said. It was more of a feel of how what she said affect me, and even then it was like: 'well, that's weird,' or 'that's so mean!' or 'I can't believe she said that nice thing about me!' or 'I can't believe she's standing up for me to her friends, even!' But that's all it was: just a 'wow' or a 'weird' or a 'hurt' feeling, but Rosalie ...

Rosalie always had everything all thought out, and then she acted, and got exactly want she wanted from whatever she did. And fuck anybody's feelings about what she did or said: she could care less. She just did what she did or said what she said to get exactly what she wanted.

Every time.

And me, and the rest of the world ... we bickered and whined and gossiped and never got anything we really wanted, we just got stuck with what we got stuck with and lived with it, bemoaning our fates.

Rosalie wasn't a bemoaner.

And she did, _definitely,_ have the 'fuck you' attitude, or the 'not give a fuck what you cared about it' attitude, more precisely, if what you thought wasn't what she thought or wanted, but she also knew loyalty, as, like, this ... 'thing.' She didn't use it, she built it, so she had her friends, and they all had this friendship, and, like she said, she was proud of her team, and what they did together, and that only happened with a team loyal to each other.

I mean the Tolland High School cheerleading squad wasn't just Rosalie Hale: she didn't just go out there by herself, no, it was the whole squad, united as a team with one goal, that did ... well, whatever they were doing, and that was on the field and off. You weren't just a cheerleader at practice, you were a cheerleader in the cafeteria, you were a cheerleader in class, you were a cheerleader before and after school and at camp, and, well, ... everywhere.

And Rosalie was loyal to that. She was loyal to the concept of a goal of more than just herself.

She was loyalty and she was royalty.

"Thinking about thoughts, are you?" she inquired.

"Yes," I said, "and about you."

"Yes, baby," she said, "I know."

I smiled.

"Must be nice," I said, "to know all the time and be sure about it."

"Yup," she said easily.

"So, ..." I said, "when did you know I loved you?"

"Day two," she answered quietly.

I thought back to way-back-when, to that second day getting a ride from Rosalie.

"That was the first day you made me do chores, and stuff," I said.

"Yes."

"... and the first day you ... grabbed me and ... you know."

"Yes, I know," Rosalie said.

I could feel the smile in her voice.

"I..." I said hesitantly, "I... don't think I knew I loved you then, for sure, Rosalie."

"Yes, you did."

I bit my lip. "Um, ..."

"Bella," Rosalie said, "you don't even know your own feelings. At all. I know your feelings much more clearly than you do. Day two. I knew. When I made you cum on the kitchen table, spanking your naughty cunt? You loved me. When I claimed your cunt and ass as mine right after? You were _hopelessly_ in love with me. Helpless, too. You couldn't not love me, after that."

I thought about that. Vaguely.

(I _suck_ at thinking about things.)

"So you're saying you made me love you?" I asked.

"No," she said, "I'm saying it was there, big time, already, and I just stated what you couldn't even think to yourself: you loved me, and you were mine. And you could only admit that to me, today, after I forcefully pulled it out of you, inch by struggling inch, Bella."

"Oh," I said.

Rosalie continued to massage my back.

I swear, I could sleep ... I could _die_ in her arms, just like this, and I would be the happiest girl in the world.

And we weren't even snarly-sexing each other like wild things.

"So ..." I said shyly, "why did you drag it out of me now, when you've known for a month already?"

Rosalie was quiet.

"May I tell you something about myself, Bella?" she asked. "Do you want to know?"

Oh. I'm doing it again. It's her birthday, and all I'm doing is thinking about myself and my love for her.

I haven't even once thought during this conversation — our second today, and that makes it our second, _ever, _by the way— what her thoughts and feelings were about all this.

"Yes, please," I said humbly.

Rosalie said, "Thank you, Bella," gravely, and was quiet again, thoughtful.

"I'm not at all a romantic person, Bella," she said. "I do what I want. Feelings are ... just a waste, really, ... that is, they are for me, anyway," she said. "So, but ... I saw this weighing down on you, and I felt you were managing as well as you could with it, but then it started eating away at you. So, now, today, I felt I should air this out, so you could declare what you've been thinking all this time, and not have to worry about it any more."

"Oh," I said.

Something rang very true in what she said. But ...

"But," I said, "you kissed me after I told you I loved ... that I love you, Rosalie," I said.

"I was proud of you. You were brave enough to say something you were scared to admit. So, yes, I kissed you."

"Pride is a feeling," I said.

"No," she said, "it's an acknowledgement."

_I_ think we're arguing over semantics now ... but that didn't help: arguing like that always turns into a 'yes, it is-no, it isn't' argument where nobody wins.

Or, the girl who can put you in an arm-lock and your face in the dirt until you cry out 'Auntie' over and over again wins.

So there was nothing more going with that idea.

"What about your friends?" I said.

"What about them?" she asked back.

"Well, ..." I said, "you have friends."

"Loyalty," she said, "friendship." I felt her shrug.

"Well, they're like ... totally different than you. I mean, Jessie's a total ..."

I paused, trying to think of a good way to say it.

"'Ditz,' right?" Rosalie asked. "Unless you were thinking of the word that rhymes with it: bitch."

"Uh, I was thinking 'ditz,' Rosalie."

Lauren was more of the bitch.

"Yes," Rosalie said. "Lauren's more of a bitch, isn't she?"

"Rosalie, how do you do that?" I said. "I mean, I see you do it all the time, but ... how do you do it? You know exactly what everybody's thinking, all the time."

"Yes," she said.

"So, how ...? I mean, ..."

I didn't know what I meant.

Her hands were still now.

"Everybody knows what everybody's thinking."

"Uh, no, they don't," I said. I had one sure example: me.

"Uh, yes, they do," Rosalie imitated my pitch perfectly, then twisted it with just enough sarcasm to make it obvious, even to me, how she though how stupid what I just said was.

I sighed.

Her hands returned to work, easing me back into a relaxed state.

My back never felt this good in my whole entire life.

"Baby," she said, "everything said by everybody is _nothing_ to what they're really saying to each other, with their glances, gestures, facial expressions, attention. And everybody sees it. For example, you stop talking when you see someone else tune out. And that's just one little thing, but, if you were honest with yourself, you see all the little things. You just choose to ignore that you know exactly what the other person is thinking, because what they're saying is entirely different than what you know they really think and feel. But if you did that, and were honest with yourself, then you'd have to admit to yourself that they're lying to you, which means you'd be saying that to yourself, which they'd see. See?"

Rosalie did have no patience with people bullshitting her, I saw that for sure.

"So, actually," she said, "I'm doing people a service. I actually pay attention what someone is really saying to me, and if they're really wanting to play games, well, I have other things to do, so I'm out of there."

"But that's the thing," I said, trying not to be annoyed. "Jess and Lauren are like, totally not like you. They're so wrapped up in themselves and what they're doing, and you tolerate that in them, so ..."

Rosalie bent down and whispered in my ear: "Just as I tolerate your little games with me, Miss Bella Swan?"

"Um, ..." I said blushing. "You don't let anything I do slide, Rosalie."

"You want me to let your shit slide?" she demanded. "You want me to be just like everybody else is with you?"

"Um, ..." I said.

"Actually," she said, "and you won't believe this, Bella, but I've let you be yourself so much more with me than anybody else in the world, _and_ I've given you _so_ much slack, all the time, to play your little games with yourself, and with me, too."

I grimaced. "You're right, Rosalie, I don't believe that."

I felt her smile again. "Baby, if I called you on everything you tried with me, you would not have one second's respite, and, I fear, you would feel beaten down into despair. I correct what I can, when I can, and I let so, so much of you playing your games go, just so that when you are you, or are better than before, there's something we can actually cherish, when it is there to cherish."

"Just like with all my friends, which I include you in with them, sweetie," she said, "Jess and Lauren are different people from me and from each other, and I let them play their games with themselves, but why, so we can move past that, so that they see I take them as they are, what they're willing to give, and they can take me as me, so that together, we can do whatever we want, and nobody can stop us. Nobody wants to. We're united, and nobody messes with us."

"I wish you'd take me as I am, Rosalie," I said sadly. "I take you as you are ..." I said.

"You take me as I am? Or did you mean that you love me as I am?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, ashamed that I didn't say that. That she had to, for me. "I meant I love you as you are."

She pushed: "Loving me as I am, even though I'm not a romantic, I don't have maudlin feelings, so I may not reciprocate the way you think I should, like: _'Oh, Rosalie!' 'Oh, Bella!'_ and all that rot?"

"I knew that about you already, Rosalie," I said.

"And you love me, despite this?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I can't help it, Rosalie. I love you."

"If you could help it, you wouldn't love me?" she demanded sharply.

"Uh, no." I said. I think I hurt her non-existant feelings. "I love you, Rosalie, and I can't help it. And if I could help it, then I'd love you, helping it. Do you know what I mean?"

I was just so relaxed from her massage, ... it actually helped me think without panicking.

"Yes," she said, then she added: "You're getting better at this."

I heard the pride in her voice.

"Thank you," I said humbly.

"But I'm not like that at all, Bella," she said. "You love me more than the Sun and the Moon and the stars and all that crap you put into your romantic poems, but I ..."

She shrugged.

My eyebrows creased. "You read my poem in the yearbook? ... No," I said. "that was in the seventh grade ..." And Rosalie was in the sixth grade then, and in another school, because I didn't know of her until we all ended up in Tolland High School in the ninth grade.

But those words were so familiar. They were like ... exactly mine, like she was reading what I wrote in my poem directly back to me.

And my poem in the yearbook wasn't about love. It was about loneliness, despair and death, so she couldn't have read that one for those words.

Her hands continued their work on my back.

"So, you love me like that, Bella?" she said. "Poetically? Purely romantically?"

I think ... I thought to myself ... I think she's trying to box my love into some 'romantic mush' so she could dismiss it as childish. But I think ... it's more than that.

"No, Rosalie," I said, "I love you, but it's more than a poem-love, it's like ..."

I couldn't put it into words.

"Are you sure you're not confusing sexual satiation with your romantic feelings, Bella?"

I blushed. "No," I said, "I ... I love you, Rosalie, and ... and ... I can't help myself there, either, I guess, but I'm not like that, really, it's just that ..."

"You are a very sweet girl, Bella Swan," Rosalie said confidently.

"Thank you," I said, relieved that she saw that in me.

She leaned into me again, and her hair brushed my back as she put her mouth to my ear and whispered: "And a total slut."

I sighed.

"It's true, Bella," she said confidently, siting upright again, continuing her massage. "You are my sweet, innocent, little fuck-slut, and you're all the more innocent because it. That's what you are and who you are: sweetness, and innocence, and I love that about you, that you're totally that, and at the same time, in the same sweet, innocent body, you are totally such an erotically-charged, sexually-repressed, wanton whore that I can't give you as much as you need and you always have more to give me than I can take. You are so filled with love and lust at the same time, and it is amazing and beautiful to see, to feel, to consume and to be consumed by. You are insatiable, both in your sweet, sexy little body, and your tiny little heart as wide as the whole world."

Somehow tears were staining the sheets by my cheeks.

"Rosalie ..." I said, and my voice was strained for some reason, with an incredible sadness.

No one.

No one had ever said that to me, called me a slut and told me my heart was as wide as the whole world.

No one had, and no one ever would.

"Do you see that in yourself, Bella Swan?" she asked quietly.

"No," I said, "but you do. And you keep asking me if I love you. And you said you love me for that. For what I am. For what you see me as. And you ..."

I gasped. More tears fell.

"I'm simply acknowledging what's there, Bella," she said. "And, yes, I love that about you. That doesn't mean I reciprocate your love as you do, however."

She _didn't_ say she didn't love me. Did you notice that? She said that she didn't say she did love me.

My head hurt. "Nobody else sees that, Rosalie."

"Because they don't look beyond all the shit, Bella. I do."

"Rosalie," I gasped, "you're the only person in the world who can call a person a shit and ... but ... nobody else sees beyond the shit, okay, because, okay ..."

I sobbed. "... because there's nothing else to see. I'm poor, I'm .. I'm ... I was flunking out of school ... I ... I got no future. No hope. There's nothing else to me, Rosalie. Just the shit that I'm living in and the shit that I am."

"Thank you for your honesty, Bella."

I sniffled.

"But you're wrong. You aren't a shit, you're just wallowing in it, and that's all you have and that's all you see. It's hard to see anything else when you're buried under it in the cesspool."

"Thanks," I said sarcastically, hurting.

"No, Bella, listen to me," she said softly, "But when you take all that away, you do have nothing. Nothing's left but you. And that's what I see. And that's what you can see when you become able, and start from there."

She was quiet, rubbing my back gently.

"Rosalie, ..." I said. "So, do you see you not ... beating me anymore?"

She thought for a moment. "Let me put it to you this way. You're a little girl, and you go up to your daddy and say, 'Daddy, I've maxed out all my credit cards, but can I borrow yours and go to the mall with my friends tonight? Oh, and I smashed my car drinking and driving, on my fake ID, so can I borrow your car for the night, huh? I'll be back before three a.m. Promise!'"

"So," I said sadly, stung, "you're never going to stop beating me 'cause it's for my own good?"

Rosalie was quiet. "Yes, that. And, ... you don't want it, you say, but you do need it. You are so fucked up that you think you don't deserve what everybody else has, because why? Because you think you're bad, and you need to be punished. So when you are, you feel that things are now right in the universe. You don't have anything good now, so you think you deserve it, because you're bad, somehow, and punishing you gets you past that point."

I felt I should object to her justifying her getting her jollies from my agony by saying I wanted it, that I was asking for it.

That was just wrong.

"Rosalie ..." I sighed, "there's, like, laws against this. You keep saying I want to be punished? I want to be hurt? Well, I don't, okay? It's just that ..."

I paused, shyly, a little bit afraid of her, even in her gentleness and care.

"It's just that you get to treat me any way you want, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Rosalie was quiet. "So you went to the guidance counselor when to report me? You called the police, then, to rescue you from willingly getting into my car?" she asked.

"I haven't," I said. "Who're they gonna believe, you or me?"

"Bella," she said, "it doesn't matter who or what they believe. You file a complaint, they have to listen to you, and they have to show some due diligence, particularly these days with all the rules for teachers, yes, but cyber-bullying awareness and peer pressure? They'd listen to you, if you made the effort to rid yourself of evil, wicked, oppressive me. But you haven't. Why is that, Bella Swan?"

I made to answer.

"Don't," she said. "Just think about what you already know in yourself and in me. You need me. You see yourself as irredeemable, and the reason why you're enthralled by me is that you just can't believe I would stoop to conquer you. But I have. And, Bella, you are redeemable, and you are enthralled. You are literally enthralled by me, and willingly so."

"I don't know about that, Rosalie Hale," I said angrily, annoyed with her absolute certitude.

"Yes, you do," she said. "It's just that you think the world doesn't allow you the freedom to submit to me, as that's somehow disempowering to you, particularly as a woman, who're all supposed to be strong and independent. Well, Bella, I am. I'm a strong, independent woman, and I know exactly what I want. And you, my dear, are my weak, little plaything, and that's exactly what _you_ want, to be owned by someone, by me, who has it all together, who knows what she wants, who sets very clear rules and enforces them absolutely. Unlike this cruel, uncertain world that punishes none of your faults, and just doesn't care if you live or die, swim or drown. I care. And you want that and you need that. And you just can't believe your luck that you found that in me."

"Rosalie," I blew out a big breath, "I _never_ know where I stand with you."

"Bella," she responded calmly, "You _always_ know where you stand with me. You just don't believe that I don't let you get away with all the things you can get away with with your mother, with your teachers, and with everybody else. You want proof? Just look at your life before you asked me for a ride, and after. Are things more clear now? What was the point of your life up to now?"

"And the point of my life now is to ... be your little slave, Rosalie?" I demanded, putting her on the spot.

"Yes."

I choked out a laugh.

The _nerve!_

She just said 'yes' ... like, just that?

I wish _I_ had a phone with a camera, so I could've recorded that 'yes' of hers, and ...

I don't know ... rub her face in it, when she came back and groveled to me for being so mean!

Yeah. So there.

But Rosalie didn't look like the groveling type.

But she continued, unabated. "I'll put it another way for you, Bella," she continued. "I'm never going to stop seeing you as you are. But you don't see yourself that way. You see yourself as a bad person, deserving every misfortune that comes your way, and if it doesn't, you ensure that it does, perpetuating your misery. You are swimming in your own shit, and when someone tries to throw you a lifeline, you dive in, drowning yourself. I'm not going to stop trying to call you out of yourself and your own shit. But you're going to stop. You're going to stop asking for a ride, you're going to stop needing my help, and you're going to move on, or you're going to quit on yourself, and on me, and let go of me, and drown yourself in your own despair."

"Uh, no, Rosalie," I said. "I totally ..." There was no way. Ever. She had me. "I totally will ... Rosalie, my worst fear is that you do stop. Not beating me, but ... that you get bored with me and do throw my ass out on the road or wherever and just never come back, and then what will I do, really? I'm dead without you, and I'm just waiting for my body to realize it so they can burn me with the rest of the trash at the landfill. That's all I am. White trash."

"Yeah," said Rosalie sadly. "And that's exactly how you see yourself, Bella."

"But you don't?" I asked.

"No."

Her hands.

They moved up to my shoulders, rubbed the tops of them, lightly, then she leaned in, her hands snuck under my arms, wrapping me in them, and she held me, in a full-body hug that was warm and comforting.

More tears fell.

I was going to have to wash her sheets, but not from my excrement, but from the salty stains of my tears.

"Why do I want you so much, all the time, Bella?" she asked softly.

"You want me right now?" I asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yeah, ... and no. I want to fuck you so badly, right now, but also, right now, at the exact same time, ... I don't want to. You are so, so fragile, and I'd hurt you by cheapening you like that, just using you as a thing to satiate my need. And I don't want that. I don't want to use you ... I want _you."_

"Oh," I said, "but ... you were, I mean, you're so controlled ... was it the massage, because you felt like you were just rubbing my back, and not ... you know ... wanting me ... you know? ... It was ... nice."

"Yes," she said.

"But you want me?" I asked, again surprised.

"So fucking badly," she said quietly.

"But ..."

I didn't know what to say.

"It's okay, baby," she said, and kissed the crown of my head lightly. "I'm fine."

She ... _felt_ fine. Like, not snapping and going nuts on me, but she also felt ... still. Sad.

"But what was it, Rosalie?" I asked, trying to understand. "I'm not like ... trying to be sexy or anything. I'm just ..."

"Sweetie," she sighed, "you aren't _trying_ to be sexy, you just _are._ Just the touch of your skin ignites my passion, and your sweet innocence enflames it. You love me, and you want me, and that so fucking turns me on. You are a little fireball, and you burn me up."

She said it so ... factually.

And she was wet, I just noticed.

I wiggled a tiny bit, experimentally.

She groaned.

Okay, _now_ I heard it in her.

"You sure it's not because you're an ass-girl, Rosalie Hale?" I dared.

But I didn't say it defiantly or naughtily. I really wanted to know. Did she just want me for my tiny tits and my ass? Was I just a fuck-slut to her, and nothing else but a piece of ass she could beat and fuck anytime she wanted to?

Rosalie paused, considering, then straightened up and returned to massaging my back.

God, that felt so good.

"No," she said finally. "If it were just that, then I would've fucked every ass on the cheerleading squad by now. But, ... they all have nice asses, don't they, Bella?"

I hadn't noticed. I think I'm feeling a little pissed off that Rosalie did.

Rosalie snickered, feeling the sudden tension in my back. She leaned in and whispered, "Jealous much?"

I blushed angrily. "No, it's not that at all!" I said petulantly.

"Then what is it, my little girl, that my hands are feeling now?" she asked softly.

I blushed harder and stuck out my tongue.

But I didn't have anything to say, and that really bothered me. A lot.

Rosalie snickered again and resumed her gentle care to my back.

You could almost say it was loving and tender, her hands on my back, and that really ... the pit of my stomach filled with acid when she said she was checking out other girls and their cute cheerleader butts, but her hands on my back told me something else entirely, and I felt such a comfort from her strong, steady, sure hands.

"No," she said finally, "it's not that. If I were just an ass-girl, I would've gone to town all through high school. Plenty of opportunity. I'm just not interested in anybody else's ass, cute as they may be. I could care less, frankly. I want your sweet, little ass, Bella. I want yours and yours alone. I want you. All the time."

"Oh," I said, shy, embarrassed, relieved and pleased all at the same time.

"'Oh,' she says." Rosalie said quietly, but I felt her smile.

I blushed.

"Do you know why I like your ass so much, Bella?" she asked quietly. Then she answered her own question: "Because it's mine, all mine."

"Yeah," I said sadly. She told me, day two, in fact, that she owned it from now on.

"No," she said, "you're not getting it. You're hearing what you're saying to yourself, you're not hearing what I'm saying to you."

"I guess I'm not, Rosalie. I don't know what you mean. ... What do you mean?" I asked.

Rosalie was quiet, then: "When ... that first day, you remember, Bella, I gave you your first five licks for the ride, to seal the deal?"

"Yes, I remember," I said.

I still felt them, even now. My ass still stung from those first five spanks she gave me a month ago.

"I was spanking you," she said, "but there was nothing there, there was just skin taut over bone, and ... my hand _hurt, _because I was spanking your hip bone more than I was spanking your ass. You had no ass then, Bella, at all_. _But I saw you, this skinny little runt, draped over the footstool, trying and failing to stifle your sobs, and ... God! I so ... well, anyway."

Rosalie wasn't usually at a loss for words. I really listened to her, trying to hear what she was saying to me, and what she wasn't.

"And, well," she said. "I saw it. You were just wasting away, and nobody cared. It wasn't their problem. It wasn't mine. You just bummed rides from people when you could. So what? Who cared? Nobody did. I didn't. You weren't even a blip on my radar, but then ... I saw you. Right up close, and I could almost count your ribs, Bella, day two, and I thought to myself, 'You know, Rosalie,' I said to myself, ' ... I could do something about this.'"

She paused, and her hands did, too.

Then she said quietly, "And I did."

Her hands resumed their work on my back.

"And, now that bony little ass of yours," she said, "it has some meat back there, I'm pleased to see, and pleased to say this was the work of my hands. I made this happen. And your complexion ... it wasn't pale before, Bella, because it was fucking chalky, but now you have a little tiny bit of color on your cheeks."

She grew quiet again.

Then she leaned in. I felt her hair wave over my back. "And sometimes when you blush, you have more than just a tiny bit of color on your cheeks."

I blushed.

Then I sighed in self-awareness.

I saw that there was one sure thing about me: if you need somebody to blush about anything, you can count on me to be the one to do it. I'm not proud of that fact, in fact (if we're being factual) (and we are) (because I'm _so_ the factual girl, just in case you hadn't noticed), but it's just something about me. People, when they notice me, which is like never, but when they _do_ notice me, I blush for them, and then they notice me _more:_ "Oh, how cute, look at that girl blushing!" they say, and I blush more, the shy, quiet girl, blushing. Look at me — _Yay! _— because I _so love_ the attention.

Rosalie kissed my temple, affectionately.

When she was tender, she was just so attentive, so loving. And when she was being righteous, there was nothing I could do but to ride it out and pray that her fury would eventually work itself out of her. It always did, up to now, but I was always the object that she worked her fury on.

In that, she was consistent: she gave her whole self to whatever she was doing and however she was being, and, lucky me, I was there to take it all: her affection and her fury.

Instead of straightening up, Rosalie fully rested on my body, and she was still.

She had the ability to fall asleep, instantly, and wake up seconds or minutes later, or, I don't know, a day later. When she was awake, you could not mess with her, she didn't take any of anybody's shit. But when she went to sleep, she was there one second, and the next, she was gone.

"Thank you for the massage, Rosalie," I whispered.

I didn't know if she were gone already, but I wanted to tell her this before she left, or even if she were already asleep. Maybe she could hear me in her sleep, and know what I was saying.

Nobody had ever done anything like that for me. Ever. And I was so completely relaxed, that, we hadn't had supper yet, but I could sleep with her an hour, or however long she wanted to sleep before she woke, just like that, and roused me to take me home.

My ride home.

And all the things that came with it.

I was Rosalie Hale's 'friend with benefits,' and she cashed in on every one of my benefits.

But that didn't mean she just took. Some of those benefits she gave back to me, and I fucking lived for this moment, all my life, and I never, ever saw it as a possibility at all.

"We're only half done," she said quietly into my shoulder blade.

"Huh?"

"There's still your front side, Bella."

"There's more?" I asked surprised.

I couldn't imaging the peaceful bliss being any more than this: Rosalie lying on top of me after lulling me into a completely relaxed state. That there was more to this?

"Did you want me to turn over?" I offered.

"Let's just," she said, kissing my shoulder blade, "let's just rest like this for a few moments. You okay like this? You comfy?"

"Very," I said, meaning it. Cocooned in Rosalie Hale's embrace? 'Comfy' was one way of saying how I felt, and 'very' was more like it. I liked this _very_ much.

"Me, too," she hummed, then was silent, resting on me.

"Rosalie," I whispered, "I love you."

Rosalie remained quiet for a moment, then she said, softly. "Thank you, sweetie, for being brave and saying that without prompting from me. I'm glad that you can do that now..."

Then she paused.

"I'm proud of you," she whispered.

I closed my eyes, and felt her weight on me. I felt her breathing in and out, pressing me down with each breath. And I never ... felt like this. I felt ... I felt so ... wanting to be with her so badly like this forever that it actually hurt.

Rosalie was proud of me.

I smiled shyly. "Do you love me, too, Rosalie?"

I was proud of myself that I could ask that now, very, very ... quietly, not hoping too, too much on what she said. Just asking her that, if that was okay.

"Bella, ..." Rosalie whispered.

I held my breath.

"... hush," she said.

My breath came out slowly.

Ugh. Okay, that hurt more than expected.

Rosalie sighed. "Sweetie, you know my feelings on this," she said.

"Yeah," I said sadly, "you say that you don't have feelings."

"Yes," she said remotely. "And, well, now you're prompting me to say something. You're wanting me to be a certain way, so I either say 'yes' to please you or 'no' to hurt you. You do see how you're asking makes it harder for me to say anything at all, don't you?"

"No," I said, trying to be level-headed, like her.

Trying. "I was trying to be brave. You ... you asked me, you know, when you saw that in me, so I just thought I'd ask you, and if you wanted to say it, ... it'd be like ... I was just trying ..."

I sighed. "I was just trying to let you ... if you wanted, you know ..."

My voice drifted off into silence, ... pointless silence. I had nothing to say, even though my question to her seemed to make sense asking it when I did, now I couldn't think straight anymore, and I felt stupid and foolish.

And smooshed by her.

"Oh," she said. "I didn't see it that way." she said.

She was quiet.

Then she kissed the crown of my head, softly. "Thank you for being brave again."

It was like ... it was like this was the first time she had to consider something differently than what she thought was going on.

"Bella," she asked, "would you love me even if I didn't reciprocate?"

She asked that quietly, thoughtfully.

But I noticed something. She didn't say 'even though I don't ...' she said 'even _if_ I didn't...'

She was being careful.

I gave my answer some thought and care.

And couldn't come up with a good way of saying what I felt. So I tried my best.

For her.

"Rosalie," I said hesitantly, "I think ... I think you said you saw I loved you even before I did, and you made me say it to you for my own good, you say. I think ... I think I couldn't love you if there ... if you didn't ... if you couldn't love me. I think ... No."

I took a deep breath. "I love you. And I think that love would've died like in the first week if you didn't ... what did you say, reciprocate, even a little bit. I think ..."

"Shh," she said.

"I think ..." I said.

"Bella, shh, it's okay, sweetie," she said consolingly. "It's okay. I hear you."

"I think ..." I gasped.

"Shh, Bella, shh," she said softly, holding me more tightly.

I held her hands, holding me, in my hands, and I swear that if she weren't some terminator-robot-cheerleader with adamantium hands, or whatever they make fembots out of these days, I would have crushed her hands in mine, I held her so hard.

Good thing she's a feeling-less robo-terminator-cheerleader-fembot, then.

"I think ..." I said, "I love you, and that's all I know."

Rosalie blew out a long sigh, but not sad nor sardonic ... it was maybe a little bit appreciative.

Maybe she wasn't used to people figuring out things about themselves. Or about her.

"So," I said shyly, "do you ... love me a little bit, maybe, too?"

She chuckled at that.

"Pushy bitch," she snarled quietly, with a touch of pride.

Then she quickly slid down a little bit, and nipped my shoulder.

Hard.

"Ouch!" I cried, and jerked in shock.

"Fuck," Rosalie moaned.

See ... I kinda jerked into her, a little bit, but by accident, you see.

Accident or no, I wasn't the only one shocked.

"God, Bella, your fuckin' sweet ass!" Rosalie snarled, and bit me on the shoulder again, hard.

_"OW!"_ I cried, and jerked again. "Rosalie, that _hurt!"_

But she was lost, and so was I.

She was rubbing against me, pressed into me, and she was humping my ass with a purpose, panting and snarling. It was like a switch flipped in her somehow, and she became pure animal.

"Uh!" she grunted, deep in her throat as she humped me. "Uh! _Uh!"_

She was, oh, my God, she was fucking me now hard.

And I wanted this. God, I wanted this.

"Fuck me, Rosalie," I begged. "Please, oh, God, please fuck me!"

"No," she moaned as she fucked me. "No, no, no, no, _no!"_

With each thrust, she kept saying 'no.' It was like a chant. And I didn't know why she said this, why she didn't want this, when her body so obviously did, and I did, too, so I kept myself pressed into her, and let her fuck me, holding me so tightly, rubbing, panting, sweating, and leaking onto me.

"Please, Rosalie, please fuck me," I pleaded. "Please cum."

"No," she said, more firmly, and slowed herself. "No," she said coming to a stop.

"No," she said, breathing hard, stopped.

I lay there.

_Why?_ Why did she stop. God, I wanted her so badly, and ... she wanted it, too. Why did she stop?

"We have to ..." she panted, "we have to be ... we have to ... not ... let's just wait a bit, Bella, after supper, okay, let's ..."

She held me so tightly, and panted, controlling herself.

"O-okay," I said sadly, coming down from wanting her so badly, feeling empty inside, and sad.

I shifted my legs a little, resting my right hip on the pillow, to get a little room between me and the bed so I could breathe a bit, too.

But, the thing was ... Rosalie was closer than I thought.

"No!" she screamed. "No, no, no, nononononono! Oh, God-damn mother-fucking..."

And she came, pressing into me hard. Just like that. I felt her let go on my ass. Like: boom.

She had never done that: that is, come so hard that she actually squirted.

But she did. She came, and she screamed, right next to my ear, and she fucking let go.

"Holy shit!" she cried, cumming. "Holy ... shit!"

While she was cumming, she had tightened up so much she was taut as a piano string, just vibrating in one long extended, perfect pitched note, but now she was just dead-weight on top of me, panting so hard, gasping. And I felt her cum trickling down over my ass, going into my ass-crack and dripping down onto my cunt ... and slurping? schlumphing? onto the pillow.

Shit.

But, seriously! and fucking God, that was fucking amazing. And that was just for me only. I could only wonder how Rosalie felt.

That is, when she came back down to Earth. Her rockets were on full boosters for that one, if you know what I mean. I mean, like, Holy Guacamole, Batman!

_Hmmm, guacamole, _I thought to myself, realizing how hungry I was getting ... I wonder if Rosalie had avocados in her fridge that she kept slamming me up against?

Rosalie rolled off me, weakly, and collapsed onto the bed beside me like a sack of potatoes thrown onto the ground. _THUMP!_

"Oh, my fucking ... _God!"_ she gasped, her hand resting lightly on my shoulder, like she needed the contact after that one.

I shifted my position carefully to look at her. Her face was flushed.

"Are you ... okay, Rosalie?" concern filling my voice.

She opened her eyes, breathing deeply, and regarded me glassily.

"Uhn," she groaned, which had meant _'supper, bitch!'_ up to now, but I wasn't sure that's what she meant this time.

I looked back at her, not sure what she wanted me to do.

_'Uhn!'_ had so many possible meanings. I mean, if you think about it, 'uhn' and 'ooga-booga' got the Neanderthals everything they needed, right?

Rosalie reached toward me with tired arms, grasping my head between her hands firmly.

"Bella Swan," she whispered hoarsely, "I swear to God you're going to be the death of me!"

Then she pulled me into a long, slow, tired kiss.

I think I ... no. I don't think. My arms wrapped around her, and I pulled right back.

And we kissed.

...

"I love you, Rosalie Hale," I said softly.

Rosalie tittered.

"What?" I said, slightly miffed.

Like, when somebody says, 'I love you,' to you, getting laughed at back is not way up there in the desirable responses category. Am I right, or am I right?

Her solemn voice countered my pique with a wry observation, however: "We know where that goes," she said, quiet laughter in her voice.

"Oh," I said, suddenly embarrassed.

"'Oh,'" she said, imitating me perfectly, and smiled sweetly.

I blushed. More.

"But ..." I said, "I mean, after that wowzers, I think you'd be kinda like ... resting now, you know?"

Rosalie looked at me, blinking. "Say 'wowzers,' again!" she demanded, giggling, just tickled pink at my 'wowzers' ... and floating in post-cotial bliss, I bet, too.

"Gah!" I exclaimed. "Jeez! Rosalie, I swear!" and turned away quickly.

But, privately, I was pleased to see her like this, for once. It's so rare just to see her silly, you know? Just happy. And I was happy that ... she was happy with me.

But my shyness had unintended consequences.

"Bella, ..." Rosalie said.

Uh, oh. I knew that voice.

But before I could do anything to defend myself, Rosalie mounted me quickly and kissed me hard, so my protest, that it was, was rather ... smothered under her onslaught.

Kinda like me.

She kept on with her kiss until my arms weakened and yielded.

Didn't help any that she was rubbing me, grinding into me.

Or maybe it helped quite a bit, actually.

But then she broke off the kiss, sighed, and looked longingly into my eyes.

Rosalie rolled off me onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. "Nope, nope, nope!" she said, chiding herself.

I asked the obvious question. "Why not?" Then: "Are you ... do you need to rest?"

She gave me an affectionate look, ... almost merry. "It's not that, sweetie. I do so want to jump your bones again, and right now ..."

"You do?" I asked surprised.

That woman is insatiable! And has the stamina of a race horse. On steroids.

"Yeah ..." she said, and her eyes got hooded and hungry as she so very obviously checked out my bod.

My bod felt the appreciation, and reacted, um ... 'appreciatively.'

Rosalie Hale could turn me on with just her look.

"Then why ...?"

She shrugged and looked back up at the ceiling. "I could so just ... _ooh!"_

Her hands made gripping-humping motions over her hips.

God.

"But ..." she said. "Gotta pee."

Then she stuck her tongue out at me.

I blushed.

Okay. How come when _she_ says she has to pee, _I_ get embarrassed, huh?

"Oh," I said, then, with a dawning realization, "... I guess I do, too."

"It's the diet coke," she said.

"Yeah."

We were quiet.

"So, are you ..." I said, and at the same time, she said, "Why don't you ..."

We both looked at each other and smiled.

Then she said, "You go first, I'll just lie here and try to get my rubbery muscles working again ... some day. Maybe tomorrow."

She looked back up at the ceiling and closed her eyes.

When she relaxes like that, the stress just melts away from her face.

She's so pretty like that, peaceful and vulnerable.

I kissed her cheek softly.

"Uhn," she complained. "Go, go, before I grab you and have my way with you again!"

"Um ..." I said.

She shoved me off the bed, emphasizing her point. I went _bonk_ on the floor.

"Fine, whatever!" I snarled at her and stomped off toward the potty.

"Bella," Rosalie called.

"What?" I growled snarkily and turned, facing her.

_Thump!_ Something big, large and wet hit my midsection and fell to the floor.

"Would you please just soak that in the tub or something? It stinks of sex."

I looked down. It was Rosalie's pillow. You know, the one that had been under me this whole time?

Yeah, that.

I bent to pick it up. It stank of sex.

Rosalie's wise eyes were watching me from the bed. "I guess it's all my fault, or ... did you leave some of your sweet honey on there, too, like I told you not to? Were you a bad, bad little girl, Bella?"

She was smiling at me still, but there was a wicked glint in her eye. "I guess we'll never know that now, will we, Bella? Unless you want to be a good little girl and tell on yourself? Are you a good little girl, Bella?"

"Uh, ..." I said.

Okay. I have a question. How come Rosalie is always asking me questions that leave me in a quandary? No matter how I answer, I just know it's going to be the wrong answer, and I'll be in big trouble, and pay for it ... big time.

Rosalie's smile widened, but then she threw her head back onto the bed and closed her eyes. "Oh, go run along, sweetie, before you wet yourself right there."

"Um, ..." I said.

Rosalie didn't even answer: her hand came out and made shooing motions toward me.

My eyes narrowed, and I simmered at her. I just _knew_ she could see me in her mind's eye, glowering at her, and I just knew she thought it was the funniest, cutest thing in the world, which only made me even angrier!

I turned and went off to her private bathroom.

"Slut," Rosalie whispered affectionately.

I cringed.

Her soft laughter followed me.

* * *

**A/N**: _God!_ This chap took for_ever!_ But, after much delay (including several loads of laundry ... I think you know what I mean), it's here. Already working on the next chap, and why is that, you ask ...?

_Why, `phfina?_

Oh, how sweet of you to ask! The 'why' is because this here is just the first half of the chap! Arrgh! And, _le sigh!_ (That is French) (No, it's not.) (Whatever) Why is it that when two girls get into bed, all they do is talk-talk-talk before, during and after, huh? Bella and Rosalie wanna go at it like gang-busters, but no! They have to talk about their emotions and feelings!

They are _so_ such girls, I swear!

When I get a sweet little Bella under me in bed? Do you think all we do is talk-talk-talk?

Well, actually, we do, usually ... uh, uh ... *blush* (we do other stuff, too, but that's none-o-your-business) (that's our biznis, not your business, get me?) (so, thanks for not askin')

_So, `phfina, what do you do when you get a girl in your bed, huh?_

I said _thank you_ for _not_ _asking! Grrrrr!_

And why did you say just 'a girl,' like 'a' is in like 'only just one' ... when ... oh, _never mind!_

_So, ANYWAY!_ The next chapter is named already, I think, 'Supine,' and I'm gonna have a special little A/N candy at the end of that chap, but you have to watch the movie _Gravity_ with George Clooney and _o, my God!_ Sandra Bolluck for my note to make any sense.

I think I've suddenly become (very) interested in older women.

I'm serious. Watch the movie. Then afterward throw your gf on your bed and do wild, passionate, life-affirming things with her, strapping her down and filling her with your big, purple 'Gravity,' ... (is that what they call them these days? ;)

Yeah. Do life-affirming things with her, like talk-talk-talk.

_Le sigh._

`phfina scampers off to her laptop to write-write-write.


	10. Supine

**Chapter Summary:** Ever have to go, but then you couldn't, and people were waiting, in line, and you tried to go, and you couldn't ... _MORE?_ Yeah. Now try that with Rosalie staring at you, tapping her foot. I'm Bella Swan, and I have performance anxiety. _NOT LIKE THAT!_ God, I can't believe I said that! _MY CHEEKS __HURT!_

* * *

I was still on the potty when Rosalie stumbled in.

She looked like she came out on the wrong end of a rave. Her hair was sweaty and matted, her eyes squinted against the bathroom light, and she had a line down the side of her face, slicing right through her left eye. I think she fell asleep against a crease in her sheets.

It's not often anybody sees Rosalie Hale as human with bed-head hair. I think she observed my wide-eyed expression, because she stuck her tongue out at me.

"Bleh!" she growled angrily.

I tried, very hard, not to laugh out loud.

_Well, good morning to you, too, Rosalie Hale, _I thought to Miss Ray-of-Sunshine. Although it was getting onto the evening.

I wondered if she were going for the record? The 'let's see how many times we can fuck Bella Swan six ways from Sunday' record before she brought me home tonight?

Did the Guinness books have a world record for that? I think Rosalie's getting close.

She washed her face at her sink, and immediately livened up, and assumed a more god-like role and look.

"Some hold-up?" she asked, looking at me in her wall mirror which I think is actually bigger than my bed back in the trailer.

Rosalie Hale likes mirrors. Lots of mirrors.

Not that she's vain, or anything, but ...

"I just ..." I said, and looked away.

"Going 'number two'?" she asked and smirked.

She loved that term.

Earlier in our 'relationship,' ... can you call it that? ... she had threatened to bust down the bathroom door and drag me out by the hair, claiming that I was stalling what was coming to me.

That's when I screamed in frustration that I wasn't stalling, I was going number two, for Christ's sake!

I mean, really! Can't a girl poop in peace between spankings and fuckings? But no!

I think she may have actually almost had a seizure, right then and there, right outside the bathroom door, she was laughing so hard_ ... at me!_

_Hmmphf!_

Well, ever since then, Rosalie's been so _solicitous_ making sure that was I going 'number two'? And did I need more t.p. because I had to wipe after going 'number two'? And, oh, did I need to go 'number two' between God-damn rounds of torture sessions, also known as 'a light, fun match or two of table tennis'?

Swear to God, that woman is relentless once she hooks onto something.

I'm actually shocked she hasn't started showing up mid-class and asked the teacher in front of everybody to make sure Bella Swan, that shy brown-haired girl hiding behind her upside-down math book, yeah, that girl? Please make sure she had gone 'number two' this period. She forgets sometimes.

And, no, _do not_ give her that suggestion, thanks.

Well, this time, I'll have you know, I was _not_ _going number two!_

_JEEZ!_

"No," I answered petulantly, this time embarrassed at her regard.

You see, it's okay for me to see Rosalie all disheveled after an exhausting session, but it is _so_ not okay for her to be smirking at me when I'm in the potty.

You see, that's, like, a rule that everybody knows, including her. _She_ can be caught an be all _'bleh'_ but she can't catch me and make me embarrassed.

See?

"Then what is it?" she demanded, amused now.

"It's just that ..." I looked away, "it won't come out when people are like ... when you're like waiting for me to ..."

"Does someone have performance anxiety?"

I dared a peek. I shouldn't have from that tone of hers. She was smiling and her eyes were dancing with delight.

"No," I said quickly looking away, "it's just that ..."

I bit my lip.

Rosalie snorted lightly, tolerantly.

I hate that when she gets all like, 'oh, you poor baby, do you want mommy to hold your hand?' like.

I sighed, and dragged myself up.

"You go, I guess," I said sadly. "I'll ..."

"Oh, nononono!" Rosalie said quickly, scolding me as she pushed me back down. "You stay right here and take care of your business. I'll use the ... 'potty' downstairs." She snickered, using the term. "You can have some time alone to relax. I'm sure that'll help."

"O-okay," I said weakly.

Rosalie turned and headed toward the door, but stopped, her hand on the door handle.

"Unless," she offered, "you want me to help..."

I didn't get it. "How can you ..."

I stopped so fast my stomach may have spun inside from me physically pulling myself back from my almost-asked question.

You see, Rosalie had 'that look' in her posture. It was cunning. It was careful. It was pure evil.

"Um," I said, correcting course. "Um, no, Rosalie," I said breathlessly, trying to be cool and utterly failing. "You go ahead, I'll ... I'll ... I can take care of myself here."

She turned, looking at me coolly. "You sure? Because I'll be happy to lend a hand."

Yeah, right. 'A hand.' Sometimes she used her hand, sometimes she used the paddle or the strap, but I knew one sure way she got me to pee, and she said she wouldn't, but maybe there was an exception if I were tricked into asking for 'a hand' from her.

"No," I said in a near panic. "I'm okay, Rosalie, really!"

She regarded me levelly. "Okay," she said then shrugged with a careless: "Whatever."

Here's something you should know about Rosalie: when everybody says 'whatever,' it means, like, 'whatever,' you know? Like, 'okay, I don't like this, but I'll live with it.' But when Rosalie says 'whatever,' it means that her evil plans are foiled, and she'll just have to wait 'til next time to have her evil way with me. Which she will. In spades.

You'd think I'd learn that and take the drubbing now, whatever the thing that Rosalie wanted to do to me now, instead of making it worse by delaying so she could concoct something worse.

I did mention I'm a slow learner, didn't I?

And, stupid as it is, sometimes I got this crazy hope that she'd forget about what she wanted to do to me and I could just have a nice, quiet, normal day with her, you know?

Yeah, I know, I know: I'm dumb.

Rosalie looked around, foiled, and I should have been rejoicing that I had stopped her from executing her evil plan, but actually I wasn't.

It looked like she was sad. It looked like she wanted to have some fun, and now she couldn't.

I know: the 'fun' would have been for her, and at my expense, but ...

But I felt sad that she was sad.

"Well," she said finally, "gotta go."

She loped out of the room.

She loped right back.

"Pee," she commanded. "Clean your naughty butt of me, and then lie on the bed, supine and relaxed, and wait for my return. Got it?"

She emphasized the word 'supine,' and gave me a hard look, leaving the consequences unvoiced.

"I've got it, Rosalie," I said and added, "I remember."

Her lip twitched upward. She was pleased that I said I could do this one little thing. "Good girl," she said, and she was gone, loping downstairs, each step a graceful, soundless footfall.

You notice that? I scurry along; Rosalie _lopes._

Even when she's rushing off to the bathroom, she's in command of herself, she's graceful and elegant.

There's a lesson in all that for me, I'm sure.

...

"Bella, why aren't you on the bed?" she said, back way too soon for petrified me.

"Um ..." I said, scared.

There was no answer to that question. It's the same question as "Bella, why did you disobey me?"

Because that's what she was implying I was doing.

"Bella?" she said coolly, again.

"Couldn't go," I whispered to the floor.

"Bella ..."

Her voice had become predatory. I looked at her, even knowing that this was a mistake.

You don't look at the huntress. You just high-tail it out of there.

But there was no high-tailing for me; I was cornered in the potty of all places.

She stalked toward me, and there was an evil grin on her face.

Her look was _hungry._

I backed up against the toilet tank, as if scooching away just a little, tiny bit gave me more of a chance to escape her.

But there was no escaping Rosalie Hale.

She mounted me, sitting right down on my lap, and tilted my head up to look up at her.

She was smiling. "Time to help you, baby," she purred happily.

"Uh ..." I said, wondering how I could opt out of her 'help.'

With my chin firmly in her hand, she opened her mouth slightly, breathing me in through her mouth, and then she ...

... purred.

Her tongue vibrated in her mouth, and she made a sound half-way between a low growl and a cat's purr. Have you ever really listened to the sound of a cat purring? It's like a motor idling, right? It's a low, steady vibration.

That sound was coming out of Rosalie's entire body, and then transferring from her into me from her lap to my hips and tummy.

She looked like she was about ready to pounce, and I tried to back away more.

"Rosalie, what're you ..." I began scared.

_"ROWR!" _she snarled and snapped in at me, striking with her mouth at my neck.

I screamed in terror. But I _knew it! Rosalie Hale __is__ a vampire!_

And in my terror, I let go and ... I peed, pinned to the toilet seat by her weight.

Her lips touched the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and she kissed me there, giggling.

I almost fainted from relief as I peed.

That woman is going to give me a heart attack, I swear!

Then I squealed: Rosalie took a little nip on my neck, just to assert her ownership.

She leaned back, smirking, looking into my eyes as I peed.

"Good girl," she purred, and kissed me softly on my forehead.

She dismounted (dismounted _me,_ that is), then sauntered out of the bathroom. "Come to bed after you've washed yourself, ..."

Then she gave me a sultry backward glance. "I'll be waiting."

Then she gave a soft little cackle that probably the only other people in the world ever heard were Hansel and Gretel before the wicked witch started stoking the fire in the stove to prepare her supper ... of them.

...

I sighed.

I really have to learn when to trust Rosalie more, you know?

I was lying, supine (yeah, I'm not that dumb, okay? I can get one thing right ... with Rosalie's prompting, that is), on her bed, with Rosalie mounted on my chest.

She was massaging my face.

Okay. I never knew my face could feel tension, until Rosalie massaged it away.

Her fingers and thumbs were firm, penetrating, insistent, and so, so gentle and patient.

And she even massaged my scalp. I mean, like, really? my scalp?

Yep, she massaged that, too.

And it felt so, so _good!_

I sighed happily.

"Shouldn't I be doing this for you?" I whispered contentedly.

"Shh," she scolded lightly.

"It _is_ your birthday, Rosalie," I added quietly.

"Bella," she said, as she continued her massage, "be a good little girl and take it."

She was quiet while she massaged. "Besides," she said, "I want to do this. I really like seeing you like this, sweetie."

Then she moved down, massaging, gently, my neck, my shoulders, up and down my arms, my hands, my _fingers?!_ my chest, lightly, firmly, but not sexually, I was surprised to feel, and she just kept going down, down, down on me, massaging as she went.

No, you pervs, she didn't 'go down' on me, okay?

I mean, she could, if she wanted to, but ...

Well, never mind! Don't kill my buzz with your pervy thoughts of what may or may not happen, okay?

Legs. Feet. Toes.

She massaged my whole body, and my whole body felt so, so _good!_

"Rosalie," I said, so calm, so serene, just floating in her loving care, "have I told you recently that I love you?"

Rosalie was quiet, just as her house, and just as the whole world of Tolland, Connecticut.

"I may have heard you mention that recently, yes," she said wryly.

"I love you, Rosalie Hale," I said, just to be sure she got the message.

Rosalie's lips pressed on my forehead lightly. "Thank you, sweetie."

Rosalie's hand stayed on my shoulder, a soft touch reminding me that she's here, that she's with me. She covered me with the sheet from her bed, and her voice whispered into my ear.

"Honey," she laughed lightly at her own joke. I didn't get it, but I smiled with her laughter.

She continued: "I'm going to step away for a few minutes ... don't ... sweetie, don't worry," she said, because I guess I tensed up, and I guess it showed on my face. "I'm just going down to the kitchen, and prepare a little something yummy for you, and I'll be back. I'll be gone ten minutes tops, so relax," she said soothingly now, "rest, ... sleep if you'd like, and I'll come right back, okay?"

"Okay," I said, very relaxed again.

"You want music while you're resting?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I like the quiet."

"Okay," she said, and kissed me on the forehead again.

It was quiet.

"Rosalie?" I whispered.

No response. She was gone.

I relaxed.

...

"Baby?"

A voice called to me from out of the darkness.

"Baby?"

I felt my head and my upper body being lifted up, then reposed on something warm and lumpy-bumpy.

Rosalie's lap. Pillowed.

She had put a pillow on her lap, and my head was resting on it, resting on her. Her hands began stroking my hair, so gently, patting her little kitty in her lap.

"Sweetie-pie, ..." she called so softy in a sing-song.

I sighed a long, blissful sigh of semi-consciousness.

I didn't want to wake up from this restful nothingness, especially if this were a dream.

But if it weren't a dream, ... if it were really real ...

I opened my eyes to slits.

I saw Rosalie's face. She was smiling down at me.

This _had_ to be a dream. Reality couldn't be this good.

"How's my little baby girl?" Rosalie asked in a little girlish voice.

"Uh," I grunted.

I think that somehow translated into 'I've never been better, and can we stay like this forever, please?'

I think that's what that meant, but I don't really have the energy to do anymore than just think that thought as my head rests in her lap.

Rosalie smirked, amused at mute little me.

"So, how much did we weigh today? Are we doing better?" she asked sweetly.

"Ugh," I couldn't stop that exhalation of air, either.

But talk about buzz-kill.

I shut my eyes and grimaced.

Rosalie was quiet.

"Hm," she said, but now her voice wasn't pleased anymore.

"No breakfast, huh?" she said.

I stayed quiet.

"Bella," she said. "How much?"

It wasn't a question. It was an order now.

I sighed and opened my eyes. "One-oh-four," I whispered.

Rosalie frowned. "That's less than yesterday," she said.

I had nothing to say.

Her hands stopped their patting me.

Rosalie sighed.

"Okay, sweetie," she said calmly, but her voice was certain and decisive now, not sweet anymore. "You know the game we play after school when you want a ride home?"

"Yes," I said.

"I ask you if you're prepared to ride with me, and you tell me you are or you aren't, right?" she confirmed.

"Yes," I said.

"Well, we're going to be playing a new game when I pick you up in the morning now."

"Rosalie, I can't ..." I began, frightened.

"Bella," she chided.

"Rosalie, my mom would ..." I felt panic creeping into my stomach and muscles.

"Bella," Rosalie commanded quietly. "Listen to me."

I listened.

"You," she said, "will do what I tell you, no matter what. That's that. If I tell you to do something, you do it, right away, regardless of who's there, if it's your mom or if it's the God-damn President of the United States. I don't care who else is there when I tell you to do something. You do it. Period. You got me?"

She glared down at me.

"Yes," I said humbly.

"You are mine, Bella Swan," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Say it."

"I am yours, Rosalie," I said sadly.

"You are mine," she reiterated.

"Yes," I said.

"Shh," her brow clouded slightly.

I 'shh'ed.

Her hand began to stroke my hair gently again.

"But that was not the game I was thinking of, Bella," she said, "so just chill the fuck out."

She said the words so evenly, not angrily, but I could tell she was serious.

"I said it was a new game, so it's a new game."

She glared down at me.

"So," she said, seeing I got it, "when I come to pick you up in the morning, I will ask you a question, and you will answer it truthfully. I will ask you, 'Bella, did you eat breakfast this morning?' and you will say, 'Yes, Rosalie, I did,' or you will say, 'No, Rosalie, I didn't,' and after you give either answer, being that you answered truthfully, you will be allowed to get in my car and get a ride with me to school, or wherever the hell I want to bring you that morning, be it school or be it to fucking Topeka, Kansas because I want to buy a fucking dairy cow, for no particular reason. You got me?" she demanded.

"Yes," I said, looking up at her.

Her rides had always been to and from school, but I supposed we had detoured to her house on occasion ... like every day ... so Topeka, Kansas wasn't too far out of the way, I guess.

"You understand the new game and the rules?" she said.

"Yes."

"So I'm gonna say 'Bella, did you eat breakfast this morning?' and you're gonna say what?"

"I'll say, 'yes, I did' or 'no, I didn't,' Rosalie," I said.

_"Truthfully,"_ she said, irritatedly.

"Truthfully," I said humbly. "I'll tell the truth."

Not like I could get away with lying to her about anything, anyway.

"That's right, Bella," she said, then she looked away.

"One-oh-four," she muttered angrily.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"'I'm sorry' doesn't cut it, Bella," Rosalie snapped back. "Do you see that? Do you see you're just ..."

She broke off, looking away.

I didn't know what to say.

She reached over to her desk with her long arms and got out the little black notebook. She pulled out her pen and wrote something, my weight, I guess, in the book, and then tossed it and the pen back onto her desk.

"One-oh-four, Bella," she said. "Yesterday it was one-oh-six, now it's one-oh-four."

"Rosalie, please ..." I said sadly.

"Bella," Rosalie said softly. "Do you see how this hurts me?"

"Yes, I do," I said.

Yes. I did.

"You wouldn't tell me that you didn't eat breakfast. Why? Because you're too proud, that's why! You think you can make it on your own and you don't want to be a bother ... Well, guess what, Bella. You not telling me? And now I have this to deal with? I'm bothered. You get that? I'm bothered, okay?"

Her voice wasn't soft anymore. It was quiet, but it was unhappy. It was displeased.

"I ... don't know what to do to make this better," I said.

My voice was so small next to hers.

"Yes, you do. You knew. You could have told me this morning on our way to school, and we could have done something about it. But no. You wanted to suffer all on your own, but guess what, Miss One-oh-four, guess who's paying for your suffering?"

"You are," I said.

Two tears, one on each of my cheeks, slid onto her pillow.

Another thing for me to wash. My punishment.

"That's right, Bella," she said coolly. "I am. And I know what to do about it, unlike you. You, obviously, know what to do to make it worse."

She was relentless. Her words just kept knifing into me, making me feel worse and worse than I already did. More tears fell.

"And ... God, Bella! ..." she exclaimed.

I sobbed. She ignored it.

"You know you need calcium. You know that, Bella. A girl, who has some growing left to do, doesn't she? Don't you, Bella! You need calcium for your bones and, ... but ... 'oh, the milk is spoiled, so I guess I'll skip the most important meal of the day!' Did you even pay attention in any of your classes before lunch? Or were you just daydreaming of me and letting your grades slip further, huh, Bella?"

She was asking me questions I had no answers for.

She waited.

I had nothing to say for myself. I'm poor. I'm stupid. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm inattentive. I'm ...

I'm crying, softly, my head in her lap, tears falling onto her pillow.

Rosalie watched me cry, not cruelly, not remotely...

She watched me like she was a terminator, watching a human, seeing me cry, and observing it, emotionlessly, like it was something to record.

Human: sad. Human: crying. Observed.

Just that.

"Bella," she said softly. "Are you hungry?"

"A little," I said.

Then I sobbed. The sob broke through my chest and scratched my throat as it came out.

I realized I was 'a little' hungry, because that's all I could afford to be.

And most days, I couldn't afford even that.

My sob petered out to a sad moan, and then I was silent, crying, looking up at her.

"Will you let me feed you now?" she asked.

"Yes, please," I said and sniffled.

"Are you my good girl, Bella?" she asked.

"I..." I blinked causing two more tears to break free from my eyes and slide down my cheeks. "I don't know," I said sadly. "I guess not, I guess I shudda ..."

"Bella," she scolded, "you are my good girl if I say you are."

I was quiet.

"Now," she said, trying again, "will you be my good little girl and play this new game each morning I come to your ..." She stopped and frowned.

Rosalie just couldn't get her head around my situation in life. There but by the grace of God go she, I guess.

She started again: "When I come over to give you a ride?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good girl?" she asked.

"Yes."

_"My_ good girl?" she demanded.

"Yes, Rosalie," I said softly.

She smiled lightly at that. "My good girl," she cooed. "My good, good girl."

She was just so happy now, so pleased.

I smiled hopefully up at her and sniffled.

She reached over to her desk and grabbed a tissue.

"Blow your nose, baby," she said, and held the tissue to my face.

I blew out my sadness, my yuck, onto the tissue, and she tossed it casually into her trash can. She took a wipe and wiped away the tracks of my tears.

She smiled down at me.

"Now," she said lightly, "let's take care of that calcium deficiency."

She took something into her hand and turned her hand to me, showing me.

"plain siggi's skyr" it said.

Ick. Plain. I felt my nose crinkle.

The stuff was bad enough, having no sugar additives, but plain was just ... _sour._

Rosalie smiled down at me.

"Now, now, Bella," she said. "I will feed you, and you will eat, and that's that. Got me?"

"Yes, Mother," I pouted.

... and cringed.

Rosalie can be really ... _touchy_ about things, and when you tease back, she can take it personally and be furious, just like that.

Her face was thoughtful.

"Bella, ..." she said.

I didn't dare breathe. She could twist my head right off, right now, and there'd be nothing I could do about it. I could run, and she could kick me down the steps, and then it'd look like an accident.

Body found at Hale residence. Girl, teenager, no history, no future. Neck broken, running down stairs.

Rosalie bent her head forward and her perfect golden hair swept over my face, veiling it, so the only thing in the universe for me was her face, her unreadable eyes.

"Remember when I said," she said, "that if you were a good girl, what I would give you?" she asked.

She whipped her hair back, and most of it cascaded back, a few strands remained, connecting us together.

She took out a tablespoon of yogurt from the cup.

"Open your mouth, sweetie," she said.

It was all so surreal. I was asleep. This was a dream.

My mouth opened, and she put the scoop of yogurt in.

My eyes widened in shock as the yogurt evaporated in my mouth. It wasn't plain at all! It tasted like honeyed yogurt.

Rosalie smiled sweetly down at me. "My own special recipe," she purred, pleased, "I made it myself while you were resting. I thought you'd like it."

She thought right. I blinked two more tears.

"Sh, sh-sh-sh," she said consolingly.

She scooped out another tablespoonful and brought it to my mouth.

"Now, this time, don't swallow, okay, honey?" and she smiled warmly.

And this time I got the joke.

I'm her honey, and she feeds me her honey.

I took the honey-yogurt into my mouth, trying to keep it there.

It was ... hard.

My mouth automatically flooded with saliva, feeling that there was food there to eat, and I was so, so hungry.

But just a little.

Rosalie's arm wormed under my neck and she lifted me up to her ...

She lifted me up to her ... mommy, and she gently rubbed her nipple against my mouth, until I opened my mouth, gratefully receiving her breast, drooling quite a bit over it, my saliva and her honey-yogurt, and I took her into me.

"Yes, baby," she cooed softly. "That's it. Suck. Suck mommy's tit, baby."

And I sucked. And my arms wrapped around her, holding me up, holding me, firmly, into her.

And she sighed.

And then ... I must have been crying again, because I felt tears hitting my cheek.

I looked up to her face, looking down at me, and I saw tears coming out of her emotionless eyes.

"My baby," she sighed, and her breath hitched for a second, and she sighed again ... or was she ... sobbing? softly?

"My baby," she sighed.

And the tears fell.

* * *

**A/N:** Yes.

That.

Okay. Sandra Bullock. I will be her fucking baby. I will be her baby in diapers and nurse at her breast. I will ... let her strap on and stuff me with her big, purple sausage and bear her love-child. Or, Hell, I'll strap on and put my babies in her and make her quicken into a wonderful roundness and beauty, if she wants, but she strikes me as a top, yes? But, like, what_ever _('whatever' meaning, 'whatever she wants')!

I mean. Okay. Seriously? Let's take score: one space shuttle, two space stations (or Russians: 0, Chinese: 0, Sandra Bullock: 3 million), tons of space shrapnel, ... Hell, throw in the whole damn Planet Earth and who comes out on top?

Told you she's a top.

And George Clooney. George-_fucking_-Clooney, a man's man, a manly man, a Perfect storm, fucking idiot man, just so strong and manly with his baby blues, so headstrong and full of himself ... like I said, a man, and that's not bad at all, and that sure as hell isn't good, it just is. But ... who was it who crawled out of the water and then got to her feet, towered above the Earth, dwarfing the distant mountains and walked away, head held high?

Was it George Clooney? Nope. Don't think so.

Sandra-oh-my-fucking-God-Bullock, that's who.

I would so be her Bella-baby. I would be the four-year-old daughter she lost when her little girl hit her head playing tag and that was it. And ever since Sandra's been suffering, just driving and driving anywhere, nowhere. Nowhere to stay without her baby in front of her eyes, nowhere to go, but to just drive and drive and drive.

But I'd probably have to pick a number now, dammit! And it'd be like a lottery, and would she ... want a girl like me? Or would I be automatically disqualified, or would I have to go mad-scientist(ess) and release a germ that took out all the XY chromosomes in the world so at least I'd have a one-in-a-million chance with the million other girls who've fallen hard for _the_ Sandra Bullock.

Sigh.

(`phfina begins to compose a fangrrl letter:)

Dear Sandra Bullock, I have nothing to recommend myself. I have only my admiration of you, my heart hurting for your hurting heart, and ... nothing else. Nothing else but me.

love, `phfina.

p.s. Take me NAOW, woman, and do wild things to me! (that's just a p.s.-FYI for ya, in case you were wondering, dear Sandra)

... um ... `phfina wakes up, looking around guiltily, surreptitiously wiping away the drool from the corner of her mouth.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, publishing this chapter, and going onto writing the next chapter. Yeah. That's what I was doing. Weird dream, though.

p.p.s. Having watched Gravity has NOTHING to do with Rosalie going all white when she called Bella a three-year-old baby. NOTHING.

p.p.p.s. Ridden is now the longest story I have ever written in my life. I hope you, my dear readers, are enjoying the ride so far. We have a long, long, long-long-long way (I didn't say 'schlong' I said _'way'! JEEZ!)_ to go, so please pray for me that I am strong enough to keep writing this. Each chapter really takes it out of me, and I'm an emotional wreck right now. Sorry, my dears. I will update when I am able. I hope you understand and are patient with me and tolerant of my little `phfinaescque-y endearing traits.

love, `phfina


	11. BFFs

**Chapter Summary:** They say high school is hell for some people. 'They' are totally fucking idiots. Not because they're wrong, but because they're right, and they don't know how right they are. I'm Bella Swan, and I sit next to the Devil herself every day at lunch. Her name isn't Rosalie Hale. Rosalie isn't really evil, is she? Somebody else is, though. _WARNING: Dark, implied murder._

* * *

She ...

She wouldn't talk about it.

She didn't even ...

She ...

She said ...

She said, "What are you talking about, Bella?"

As if I were the one who had lost my mind, as if I were the only one crying in her room.

But I knew different.

Sorry: 'different_ly._'

I brought my hand to her cheek, and I felt her tears on my fingers as I looked up to her, imploring her with my eyes to tell me what was wrong, why she was crying.

But she just said, "Sh-sh-sh" and "It's okay, baby," and she held me to her breast.

And that's how she fed me.

One cup of yogurt. _Icelandic_ yogurt. Honeyed yogurt that she heated up the honey she bought from a local apiary, so it was from clover right from here, maybe even the bees got the nectar from flowers right in her yard.

Maybe.

But the yogurt was so thick that even though it was just four tablespoons (I told you the cups are tiny), I was ... well, I wasn't full, but I was ... satisfied, happy and warm, inside and out.

Because I wasn't eating yogurt.

I had nursed at Rosalie's breast.

That's how she fed me.

And, okay. Kinky? Fucking sexy? Warm and tender? All of those things?

But, somehow, whatever I got out of this, and I'm not really dealing with that all, as I'm just overwhelmed by the suddenness of it and it was just too much for me to think about right now, the powerful emotions washing over me.

But whatever I got out of this, I don't think it was about me ...

No, or for me or ...

Or ... I don't know.

I think, though, whatever I got out of it, this moment, I think ...

I think something happened just now, and I think ... I think it hit Rosalie.

I think it hit her hard.

But ...

She wasn't shut down, but ...

It's like it didn't happen, this moment, it's like. "I fed you, you nursed, it was fun, right, Bella? You liked it, didn't you?"

And I could not pry one word out of her what happened back there. Not one word about she experienced.

"Crying? Me?" she asked, giving me a look like I didn't know what I was talking about.

And she just shrugged it off. "Whatever," she said.

But her 'whatever' didn't mean 'whatever,' it meant ... 'drop it.'

Drop it, or else, and I saw the demon, waiting behind her eyes.

Waiting for me ... _not_ to drop it.

I don't think ...

I don't think Rosalie's a person, really. You see the movie _Jennifer's Body?_ About this superpopular girl in high school, but she's not? Not anymore, that is. A girl, I mean. She's not a girl, because a demon possessed her soul, and she goes around being cool with her friendies during the day, and she has a little sub she tortures _(sound fucking familiar?)_ but, she takes people at night ... and eats them.

And not in the good way.

So when I see her calm face, and her blank eyes, but behind them, the demon, waiting, lurking ... I try, God, I try to ...

... to do anything to keep it from coming out.

But it will come out and possess her, and then, when that happens ...

There's hell to pay.

Literally.

So, I saw the demon, just ... waiting, just anticipating, just hoping I'd press Rosalie on this matter, so it could come out and reign over Rosalie's body, and take a little bit more of her mind as its. A little bit more of her soul.

So I shut my God-damn mouth. I dropped it. You fucking bet I dropped it and ... tried to gracefully talk or think about anything else.

But I saw it. I saw the demon seeing me not letting it go, not really. I saw it seeing me thinking about Rosalie's tears, and stupid me, wondering why they were and what I could to do to help, to be there for her, for the real emotion that she said she didn't have. The emotion she was suppressing so hard they came out as tears she didn't even acknowledge as she wiped them away with an angry sweep of her arm and asked me what I was talking about.

"Tears?" she asked. "What tears, Bella?"

And pressed me back to her breast, and wrapped my errant hand back around her neck holding me into her as she 'didn't' cry her tears onto me.

But what could I do?

I'll tell you what I'll do.

Someday, I'll die.

You remember, don't you? Right here in our home State, a bunch of high school students had a secret.

You see, a long time ago, a girl went missing. They said she went away.

She did. Into a ditch, in the forest, and there she stayed, and rotted, and all her friends came out and visited her, occasionally, showing her corpse off to their new friends.

I'm just waiting for that one day.

Rosalie will take me for a ride, presumably to 'Topeka, Kansas,' wherever the hell that is, presumably to buy a cow, ... and Jess and Lauren will come along for the ride this time.

And they'll ... play.

And, one day, it'll go too far. One day, the demon will come out of Rosalie, and something will happen, and it'll be an accident, but ...

But you can't come back from that kind of accident.

After all, that's what 'going too far' means.

Or maybe Lauren will do it.

You see, I know there's a demon in Rosalie's eyes, because ...

There isn't one in Lauren's eyes ... Lauren isn't possessed by a demon, because she is one.

The only time she fucks a boy is to hurt his girlfriend, be it his ex he just broke up with, or be it his ex that ...

Just found out. From her.

I'm just waiting for her to spill the beans on Jess about Mike Newton, and watch Lauren just ... _revel_ as she crushes Jess with what she and Mike were doing ...

Have been doing. Are doing.

And Mike and Jess are supposed to go to Prom.

If Lauren sees anybody happy, then she has to destroy it. She's angry and bitter, and if she sees somebody else not in misery ... she actually works at putting them there.

Lauren would do it. She'd kill me in a heartbeat, by 'mistake,' but she'd make sure Rosalie saw it all, ... and suffered for it.

I'm actually surprised she hadn't gone after me up to now, but I guess Lauren works in the dark, she doesn't outright stab you in the back where everyone could see, and Rosalie has had me every second Mom or school hasn't, so I guess she just hasn't had the opportunity yet ... to go for the kill.

But ... I see it in her. She's just waiting, biding her time, the perfect time when she can strike, and deal out the maximum amount of damage, with the most amount of pain, and then, her tight, little polite smile ... won't be so polite anymore.

Do you know who I feel sorry for? Not for me, no. Lauren will be doing the world a favor by getting rid of me. And Rosalie will ...

I don't know, actually, what Rosalie will do then. Kill Lauren? Kill herself? Dispose of my body, and forget the whole thing as if it all never happened?

Whatever Rosalie will do, it will be decisive.

No, the one I feel sorry for is Jess.

She just goes along with everybody. She's co-captain of the cheerleading squad, but she is a total ditz, a total follower, so she'll just follow along with Rosalie and Lauren, videoing the whole thing, giggling at how funny it all is, me being tortured, begging for mercy, and Rosalie will lose it in front of her friends and something will happen, or Lauren will have her turn with me and do something 'by accident' ...

And Jess will be there, videoing the whole thing, she'll see it all, and I'll be so hurt that they'll have to kill me to shut me up or end what was finishing me already, like internal bleeding or something, and then they'll have to get rid of the embarrassing questions, that is, my corpse, or they'll've gone too far and killed me already...

And Jess will be standing there, and ...

And she'll try. She'll try to be quiet about it, and pretend like nothing happened when they're back at school.

But ... Jess? Being quiet? That's a red flag and a half, and people will start to ask insistent questions: "Jess, what's wrong? I'm worried! What's wrong? What's wrong?"

She'll go insane. It'll eat away at her. And sometime, maybe before graduation, maybe before Prom, maybe not. Maybe after high school when she's in college ...

She'll snap, and she'll realize, she was there, videoing silly me begging for them to stop, ... and they didn't stop. And she was there, and she could've done something, but she was videoing me, because it was so funny, wasn't it, Jess? It was so funny!

I pity Jess. One day, something will happen, and she'll be left standing there, shocked, wondering what happened. But knowing, slowly knowing, that she knew what happened, and she was there, and she could've done something.

And she didn't.

I worry for Jess, she's a girl who's just along for the ride, and she'll never even know what hit her when it'll happen, she'll just be one of those passengers when a friend is driving her, and her friend is fine, right? just a few (dozen) shots, and she's fine, because she doesn't want to say anything bad, because nothing bad ever happens when she's with her friends.

And her friends are Rosalie and Lauren.

Yeah.

Me, I see what's happening, what's going to. I'm Rosalie's friend, and that has tragedy written all over it, and remember the play Othello? The 'friend' Iago? Who got Othello to strangle his wife because she was faithful to him and loved him more than she loved her own life? Just because Iago couldn't stand Rosalie, that is, I meant, Othello getting all the power and glory and accolades while she, I mean _he,_ just stood in the background, watching it all happen, secretly hating Rosalie.

I meant 'Othello.'

Iago is spelled Lauren these days, isn't it?

I just see it coming. And Rosalie will be Rosalie, and what will happen will happen, and she'll deal with it, and maybe she'll find she has emotions then, or maybe she really doesn't (that's a lie and a half, Miss 'I'm not crying' Hale), and she'll just deal with it.

But the play Othello didn't have a Jess.

But Hamlet had an Ophelia, and look what happened to her. Pure, good, friendly Ophelia, just pulled along by the tide of events and then ...

And then it was over. It was game over when everything else was happening, and nobody had any time for poor, friendly Ophelia as her whole world crumbled and fell apart.

Poor Jess!

Nobody cares about her, she's just there, and funny, and stupid, and gossipy, but ...

Poor Jess.

I feel sorry for her.

When she's there, videoing me and Rosalie and Lauren, and our little moment, when one of them 'accidently' (maybe) goes too far and kills me.

I know domestic violent. Three pm every single day, you know what time it is, because three pm there's a cop car and an ambulance tearing down the road to our trailer park, when the kids get home from school, and start getting into trouble, and they hurt each other, or they get on their 'parents' nerves, and tempers flare, and ... sometimes ... the ambulance isn't necessary.

Because it turns out the ride to the hospital is so the coroner can make a mark of three little letter: "D.O.A."

"Dead on arrival."

And nobody meant to kill anybody, just things got out of hand.

One day, the demon will come out from behind Rosalie's eyes, and things will get out of hand.

I know that. I'm fine with that.

She'll be doing the world a favor.

One less burden to society.

She'll be doing me a favor, too. Life without Rosalie is pure hell. I'd rather die than go back to it, and if that's going to happen, why not it be her?

It will be her, ... or it will be Lauren, the girl not possessed by the Devil, no: she's consumed by him. Sulfur, black smoke, hell in her eyes, everything. She's just pure bad news, and the only reason she gets boys into her bed is because they think with their heads, their little heads... you know, the ones between their legs, that is, because that's the only thing 'thinking' or 'paying attention' anyway, when she sets them in her sights.

And she ruins them, just so causally, almost before the bedsheets cool. And she does it over and over again. You'd think people'd wise up after a while.

But there are a thousand students at Tolland High School. That's a lot of boys for Lauren to ruin. A lot of stupid boys who want their turn at one of the most beautiful, most popular, one of the smartest cheerleaders at Tolland High, regardless of warnings from their friends ... what do they know? Regardless of what it would to do their girl friend if they found out ... who would tell them, anyway? And it's just one time, right? That's not cheating, too much, right?

Lauren.

I leave her alone. I don't say a word to her unless she asks me a question. I don't look at her. But she's been 'warming up' to me ... she's been getting 'friendlier,' ... 'chummier,' sitting next to me now that I'm sitting across from Rosalie at the cafeteria, and ...

She's been looking at me. And she's been looking at Rosalie.

And I see the wheels turning.

You know, I could say that I don't know why Lauren hates me, hates me like she hates no other person in the world. I could say I do know why: I'm 'gay' I'm a 'fag' and she can't stand sitting next to me, pretending to be a chum when all she wants to do is hate-crime me for the twisted fuck that I am.

I could say that. But both would be lies, I think.

I think I know why she hates me.

I think ...

You see, nobody sits at the table, ... you know, the cheerleaders' table in the cafeteria. Just cheerleaders. Sometimes Jess brings her current 'reason for her existence' ... you know: what other people would call her current crush, but bringing boyfriends is highly discouraged. Cheerleaders hang together and talk cheerleader stuff and boys would just say the wrong things at the wrong times and it would be awkward, for them, after they got silently slammed the seventeenth time and they still didn't get the hint to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out.

See, at the cheerleaders' table, I didn't have anything to say, and, unlike Jess, who, when she had nothing to say, just kept talking and talking to fill the uncomfortable silent, I just shut the fuck up.

I'm not a boy. I can take a hint.

But ... you're not ... welcome at the cheerleaders' table. Unless you're a cheerleader, which I'm not. And you're not invited to sit there.

I was invited to sit there. Across from Rosalie.

Lauren's place.

And I could say, too, that Lauren doesn't know why or how this all happened.

But that'd be another lie.

Lauren and Rosalie ... and Jess, have been, like, friends, forever.

For. _Ev_. Er.

I mean, they were together when they came in in the ninth grade which means that they were together-together since before then, and then, Senior year ... _Spring semester_ of Senior year, little me comes along, and I sit across from Rosalie, and Lauren has to ... move down. Just a little bit, but she had to move.

I could say that I don't think Lauren is the kind of person who handles rejection well. I could say that I don't think Lauren has any other friends, any _real_ friends, that is, other than Rosalie ... and there's Jess, too, but who cares about Jess? She's just an empty-headed ditz. She's not Rosalie. She doesn't matter, like Rosalie matters.

I could say any of this.

I could say Rosalie'll protect me from Lauren, not that I know why, other than I've seen her protect me from everybody else, Lauren just watching the whole time, and getting the very clear hint.

You don't mess with what's Rosalie's. You don't want Rosalie pissed off at you. There'd be consequences. Long-term consequences. _Permanent_ consequences.

And Lauren doesn't want Rosalie pissed off at her. Lauren wants me out of the way — out of sight, out of mind, right? — so Rosalie won't be pissed off at her and won't, _worse,_ ignore her anymore, but so that Rosalie will ... love her. Again.

I think ...

I think ... Lauren, hate-filled Lauren goes from boy to boy, bed to bed, ruined relationship (which she wrecks) to ruined relationship, because ... okay, it's trite, but so what, it's there, because she's trying to fill an emptiness inside her that she's never, ever had, but she sees in others. She wants to be loved.

And Rosalie Hale is the only person that's given her the time of day, and, more than that, her respect.

Because Lauren is a total badass cheerleader. She could've been captain, easily, if she put her mind to it, if she weren't in Rosalie's shadow (like me), and if ... she didn't destroy everything she touches.

Rosalie ... and Jess, are the only two people Lauren hasn't destroyed, and so Rosalie, ... and even Jess, have a measure of respect back from her that she gives no one else in the world.

And then along comes little mousey me, and that first day, I sit down at their table, and Jess just looked at me in confusion. I mean, I could read it like words were printed on her face, it was like: "Um, who are you? And, like, what are you doing here?" Like, curious. But Lauren ...

Lauren's face went _white. _I mean _pure white._

And then she had to scoot down.

And then, to top it off, Rosalie announced, like, to the whole table, no, to the whole frikken cafeteria ... no. To the whole fucking world. "This is Bella. She's sitting with us now."

And that was that.

But that was so not that with Lauren.

I mean... you see how clumsy I am. I'm just waiting for Lauren to set it up. She'll have another cheerleader, or her current bf, 'accidently' bump into her when we're all going down the stairs to a class, and she'll 'stumble' and bump into me and ...

Books everywhere, but ... Oh, my God! Dial 911. Rosalie! It's Bella! She fell down some steps and ... Oh, my God! I think ... I think she hit her head. I think she's ... Rosalie ... I think she's ...

Rosalie is always so, so, ... _so_ angry when I hurt myself, or even when I get close to hurting myself.

I think she sees it as clearly as I do.

As clearly as Lauren does.

I'm just waiting. One day either that will happen or Rosalie will want to ... 'play' with me, and what to show off, a bit, to her friends, and they'll be invited over, and there'll be a 'scene.'

And then Lauren will want to play a little bit, too. And Jess will be recording the whole thing, but the sleeper-hold Lauren will put me in, seeing me look so funny, my face turning blue and all ...

One more ounce of pressure and ... crrrrick. It's over, and all Lauren can do is say 'I'm sorry,' and all Jess can do is stand there, hands frozen, holding her phone, recording it all.

But ... no.

Lauren won't want that.

She can't be held responsible directly, because then Rosalie'd blame her. She'd have to set Rosalie off, and then Rosalie'd go too far, and my head goes _crack!_ and who's there to comfort her after that terrible, terrible tragedy?

Lauren.

or ... she sees how clumsy I am. She'd suggest something. "Let's play manhunt in the wood, Rosalie, what do you say? And Bella'll be the 'man' and we get to chase her, and it'll be so much fun! Bella running and us chasing her?"

Rosalie's ... God! Rosalie'd go for that in a heartbeat. She's probably cream her jeans just thinking of me running and her and her pals chasing me. And then, I'd be running, naked, and Lauren, fit, flit, Lauren, be running right after me, and be hooting to make me scared, and I'd look, and ...

And the forest doesn't have level ground, you've noticed that, right? And this is Connecticut, right? You know, where the glaciers deposited all those rocks and boulders and all that stuff.

I'd trip on a root, and _crack_'d go my head on a stone-something lying about, a fence or outcropping or whatever. And I'd be dead, or, better, I'd be bleeding out, and Lauren'd stand there, and watch me for a while, then just turn around, and meet up with Rosalie and say, "Where's Bella?"

Just like that: "Where's Bella?"

And they'd look and look and look ... into the night...

And they'd find me ... or they couldn't and they'd have to give up. They'd _have_ to give up.

Something Rosalie never, ever does. But Jess and Lauren would _have_ to get home, and so would Rosalie and ...

And there'd be a real manhunt. With bloodhounds and everything. And somebody else'd find me.

Then Rosalie would see me.

I wonder if the coyotes will've been at me a while by then?

And Jess'd be ... hysterical, of course. But Rosalie ...

Rosalie would just swallow it. Wouldn't she? She doesn't have feelings, and she can't show anything about me or toward me. That would ... raise questions about the nature of the situation and the ... _deceased_.

But Lauren would see it. And she would be quiet, too. And sad. She'd be honestly sad that Rosalie was sad, and can't show it.

And Lauren'd comfort her. Lauren would comfort Rosalie, her friend. Her best friend. And be strong for her when she needs somebody to ... well, not lean on, but be strong, so she can be strong, too.

And would Lauren and Rosalie ... you know?

I don't know.

I don't know if that's important to Lauren, now that she sees, and _she knows, _that Rosalie and I are ... you know? I don't know if Lauren has to have Rosalie in her arms, as I do, now that she sees that I do.

I don't know if that's as important to Lauren as having Rosalie back as her best friend.

Her best friend, forever.

* * *

**A/N:** _Brrrrr!_

Okay, `phfina: the fuck?

I know, right? (Lauren's favorite reply to a compliment, by the way).

Steph talked about Lauren once. _You_ can look it up.

But, okay. Jess and Lauren. _Why_ would Rosalie be friends with them? With either of them? I mean, Jess is co-captain, so, yeah, they have a working relationship, but ...

But ... _Lauren Mallory?_

'Mal'lory. From the Latin: bad. Evil.

And why is Bella all like, 'okay, Lauren's gonna kill me,' and she does nothing about it?

You ever have a 'friend' in school that was just bad news, and you knew she'd kill you if she could get away with it? Not, 'think meanly' of you, but actually kill you?

Of course, she never did, right?

Except in Connecticut, where it's actually happened. Four friends, and one shy, quiet girl who went with them into the woods. And she knew, but ... they wouldn't actually kill her, right? They just wanted to ... 'play.' And she just so wanted to be liked, and not be alone, and not be ugly and stupid anymore ... she just so wanted to be one of them, so badly that she'd do anything, just to go along with them.

And you wonder why Bella is doing nothing, even though she can read it right across Lauren's face.

But Rosalie'll protect her.

Right?

And right now, somewhere in a high school, is a fifteen-year-old girl ... a thirteen-year-old girl, wanting to be liked, and hang with the cool crowd and have some fun for once in her life, and they won't do anything, because they're so nice now, so funny and friendly, now, not mean like before. And she's so grown up, just like them, drinking and smoking and being cool.

And I can't say anything to you, because being cool is so much more important to you than being you, that you'd trade you for cool any day of the week, just for five minutes.

I know. I just ... know. I've been there. I've put myself there.

And then you read about you in the papers after. Or you don't, because now it just happens, and everybody accepts it, the parents do, too: that's what kids do, and they need to blow off some steam and have some fun, so ... and well, sometimes things happen.

Like in my home State of Connecticut, of like in Steubenville, Ohio. Fifteen-year-old girl and a bunch of boys from the football team, captured on Facebook and Instagram for their later re-enjoyment.

Girls ... and fuck, idk, boys, too ('cause boys can be picked on and bullied and hurt like girls can, too). Just ... look after yourself, and have a friend to look after you as you look after her, with your very life. There's only one you, and you're way too cool, being you. I want you, not cool. Cool is for them. Not you. I want you, just as you are.

And I'm talking to you, Jess, and I'm talking to you, Lauren. You may think the only thing that matters is your friends and what they think of you, but they're your friends because you are there, too. Remember that. And you do have a voice, and that voice is strong because you agree with them, and they like you, but that voice is also yours and you can say what you think is right and what is wrong, and they, _surprise!,_ can still be your friends afterwards, and maybe even respect you for standing up for what you believe.

Or you think you may have been hurt too badly to ever recover, and that you're just a bk, a bad kid, bad news, just rotten to the core. You think that when Daddy came into your room and did the things he did to you, that now you can never recover.

And maybe you can't. But maybe you can. Somehow. And maybe you do have a friend who will love you, and, loving you, won't hurt you anymore, like you're hurting now. And maybe you don't have to hurt other people to feel anything at all. Maybe you can just open your heart a tiny, little bit, and try hope, one more time, today, and maybe just smile when your hope isn't crushed today, and realize you can breathe, just today, and the sun does shine and the rain does fall. And maybe it does. Maybe the world does do that, and there's room in the world for you, too, even, and still, even today, even as you are.

And maybe I'm an idiot who's blind and just believes in hope too much. How many times has your heart been crushed, `phfina, huh? How many times have you been betrayed by your friends? And how brave are you, every morning to go to work and keep your nice, safe distant work relationships but come home alone, again, and always, and cry yourself to sleep and write your platitudinous little sh!t? You should be an advice columnist.

Yeah. My heart has been crushed. Is crushed. But it's mine. And I'm alone. And ...

And I don't have anything to say to that.

Yes. I do. I'm alone. But I'm alive. I'm breathing. Still. And I'm living life on my terms. I chose this. I chose me, maybe because I'm scared of everybody and everything, but it's not at the whim of everybody and everything. And it's my life, and these are my words, and I share both with you.

I love you.

Peace out.

kisses, `phfina

('cause I'm cool like that. That's how I roll.)

p.s. I'm really scared, publishing this chapter. I really didn't want to write it, but it fits, unfortunately, for the 'Happily Ever After' that's coming. Please tell me honestly, what you think of it ... did I go too far, too fast? I'm just ... scared.

p.p.s. Please don't compare my story to other people's stories. You wouldn't like it if somebody compared your tits to somebody else's, would you? Yes, my brother's story is better than mine. Thanks for telling me that. Two reviews already have 'Well, MSR is better, but I like your story, too.' Do you hear yourself when you're speaking? Really? Ridden isn't MSR. You want MSR, read MSR; it's a great story from a great man. I know. It's on my favs list. But if you want to read Ridden, read it, and comment on it, okay? Thanks.


	12. Fun

**Chapter summary:** Rosalie asked me if this were 'fun.' Firstly, ... well, what's 'fun'? I had never experienced that in my life. And secondly, making supper as Rosalie's slave is supposed to be ... 'fun'? I'm Bella Swan, and I think I may actually be having fun ... for the first time in my life.

* * *

"This is fun, right?" Rosalie asked me.

"Um..." I stuttered uncomfortably, then I said as brightly as I could: "Yeah, this is ... fun."

'Fun.'

What does 'fun' mean? I was saddened to learn, right now, about myself that I didn't know what 'fun' means, because I had never experienced it in my life.

Ever.

And, but ... this? 'Fun'?

Rosalie was with me, in the kitchen, and she was dressed simply in a white top and rust-colored skirt, casual around-the-house wear for Rosalie and I was ... 'dressed' as I normally was, in my kitchen apron, and in nothing else, and we were ...

Okay, _'we_ were,' did you get that?

We were making supper. Together.

Yes. Rosalie was helping me in the kitchen, making supper.

Someone have a feather? 'cause you could knock me over with it.

I wish Rosalie were videoing _this,_ because nobody would believe it without proof.

And supper?

Supper wasn't on the menu planner on the fridge, so I just looked, helplessly, at the menu planner, hoping Rosalie wouldn't leave it to me to guess what she wanted me to make, because then I'd invariably guess wrong, and pay for that guess for the rest of the day and maybe even weeks afterwards if I _really_ pissed her off.

That incident of the 'seared Ahi tuna' recipe she wanted me to make (okay, like, _how?)_ that I pan-fried and blackened for her? Because that was my best guess?

_Please_ don't bring that up with her. I think if you did she's become so angry again she'd start the punishment over from the beginning, and I didn't need to live through that again, thanks.

The irony with that one? After she got done beating me into a pulp, leaving me half-dead, I swear, on her bed, she came back upstairs and tasted it in front of me, just to show me what a shit I was for ruining her sushi-grade quality Ahi tuna (whatever the _fuck_ that meant), and she tried it and ...

And I saw her face ... change, right in front of me, wanting so badly to hate that I cooked her fish, wanting so badly not to show any admission that how I prepared it was _pretty darn good._

Because then she'd have to admit that she was wrong. And she couldn't do that.

Life under Rosalie's thumb in Rosalie's kitchen _had_ taught me a thing or two about blending spices together into a flavorful, savory dish that just melted on her tongue.

But she couldn't say that to me, left whimpering on her bed, because then she couldn't justify having just beaten the tar out of me for ruining her supper like I just did, now, could she?

But she could, and she did, the next week tell me to prepare half of her Ahi tuna _properly this time, Bella, for God's sake, with a soy-wasabi sauce _and the other half? _'Oh, do the other half like you did it the last time, yes? That was ... well, do it like that again, okay?'_

Okay! Whatever Her Majesty wants, and _you're so welcome_ for the last time, too!

Yeah, that was Rosalie's 'apology' for being 'wrong.'

_AND _I had to look up what 'wasabi' meant. Being with Rosalie Hale was an ..._ educational_ experience.

'Educational.' Yeah. That's one way of putting it.

But that was supper, normally ... I mean, when I messed it up, normally. But normally, I cooked her supper, under her very close (stinging) supervision, and served her at the table in the dining room ...

And knelt down on the floor, and took bites of food from her hand.

When people say, 'Oh, come on over, we'll feed you supper.'

Rosalie Hale took those words literally.

"Bella, ..."

I was called back into the here and now by Rosalie's reproving tone.

"What?" I said defensively.

She said ... well, she _wanted_ me to say we were having fun, and I said we were having fun. I did what she wanted! Why does she always have to be so mean to me when I'm doing exactly what she tells me she wants me to do!

Or me _trying_ to do what she wants.

And that's the kicker, isn't it.

I sighed.

"Look," she said quietly, consolingly. "I know nothing about us and our situation is ... normal, okay? And I get that," she said. "But can you try just to let that all go and just be here with me now, and enjoy this moment?"

She looked searchingly into my eyes.

"Okay," I said humbly and looked away.

She snorted angrily. "'Okay,' meaning 'no,' Bella?"

"No," I said, tightly, looking back at her. "So, okay, so, you want this moment to be normal when there's _nothing_ _normal_ about it or us and ..."

"You want 'normal'?" Rosalie asked derisively.

I was starting to lose it. How can I be a perfect little slave to her _and_ have to be on my toes all the time, watching what I say and what I think?

It wears a girl down. It really does.

"Rosalie," I gasped exasperatedly, "I don't even know what _normal is!"_

Rosalie pulled herself erect.

She does that when I say something confrontational. She is a whole head taller than me, but now, she was even more imposing.

She pursed her lips, thinking.

Then she smiled. "Yes, you do."

_"ARRRRRGH!"_ I screamed.

Rosalie chuckled lightly.

"Baby," she said comfortingly. "Normal is this: you are just scraping by with your mom, and your dad isn't there anymore. Just like the majority of American families today."

_"Don't_ you bring my dad into this!" I shouted.

I felt the blood entirely drain from my face.

But where did that come from?

Rosalie had a thoughtful look. "Okay, I won't. But he won't, either, because he's not bringing himself into this, into your life, and he hasn't for how long, Bella, leaving you and letting you live like that?"

_"He hasn't since he died!" _I screamed. _"Okay? You happy?"_

Rosalie's face was white, probably as white as mine, and she looked shocked, surprised.

"Oh," she said quietly, and her eyes shifted away from my furious ones.

I wanted to turn away from her face, seeing it like that, knowing I made her look like that: hurt.

I had wanted to hurt her. And that's exactly what I did.

Yay. Go me.

_God, _I'm such a shit.

I wanted to run away, but to where could I run? To her den? Run to home? And then do what? Cry in my mom's arms? She was done cutting hair, but now her boyfriend would be there, and that would be awkward, a teenage girl crying in the arms of the woman you want to ... you know ... with.

Phil was actually a pretty nice guy, this time around, _thank God,_ but he was my mom's boyfriend, and that's all I knew about him. That, and he was a body builder, or something. The guy was huge.

But he wasn't my dad. He never would be. Nobody could be. Not anymore.

"I..." I said.

"What ..." Rosalie said at the same time.

We looked at each other, helplessly, both hurting, me, because she hurt me, unintentionally, and her, because I hurt her.

On purpose.

Rosalie smiled sadly, and reached out with her hand, grasping me by the wrist, and gave me a little tug.

I didn't move. I didn't know what she wanted me to do. Or maybe, like she says, I did know, but I didn't want to give her a hug.

I didn't deserve to.

And there was the little matter of me falling apart having not made supper yet and all.

Rosalie tugged again and turned, leading me into the den, and sat on the couch, pulling me into her lap, wrapping me in her arms.

What could I do but hold her back?

I sniffled. I sniffled maybe once or twice as she held me, quietly, gently.

Then I lost it. I cried and I cried. In her arms.

...

"Did you want to talk about it?" Rosalie asked solicitously.

"No," I said.

Her top was wet on the shoulder I cried on.

And then there was my runny nose. Ick.

I added apologetically, "There's nothing to talk about."

"Huh," Rosalie remarked noncommittally. "'Nothing to talk about,'" she added with a tinge of disbelief.

I sighed and shrugged. "Police officer. He died a hero. That's all I know."

"They wouldn't tell you any more?" she asked.

"It happened more than fifteen years ago, Rosalie, so that's all I know. Mom told me he died a hero, and that's all I got, that all we have left of him, my dad, the hero."

"Oh," she said quietly.

"I don't even know what he looks like, or anything, I just ..." I said.

I sniffled.

Rosalie hugged me tightly.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said gravely.

_Me, too, _I thought.

I'm sorry for my lost dad. If he hadn't died a hero, he'd be in the police force now, maybe even the chief, or something. They get paid well, don't they? So we wouldn't have to live off of Campbell's soup and mac and cheese, so I wouldn't have to beg for rides to and from school, so I wouldn't have to wear the same clothes over and over again and get looks, so people wouldn't avoid me, the poor girl.

Rosalie kissed my forehead.

"Why don't you rest here on the couch for a while, and I'll finish making supper, okay?" she offered.

I shook my head. "No," I said, then laughed sadly, "... and you, finish making supper?"

"Excuse me, Miss Bella Swan," she said mockingly in an affronted tone that didn't mask the pleasure that I had dared talk back to her in my sorrow, "but I took care of myself just fine before you came into my life, I'll have you know."

I heard what she said, but then, I didn't hear what she said, because I focused on a very few select words: _'before you came into my life,'_ she had said.

I tasted her words on my mouth, and I ... didn't know how to handle what I felt about that.

So I decided to ignore that feeling, for now. And maybe taste it again tonight when mom and Phil had fallen asleep, leaving me alone in the quiet and dark and this feeling to savor.

"I was just saying," I said, "there's a lot to do, and ... I don't want to be left alone now."

Or, more honestly, 'I don't want you to leave me .. alone.'

I didn't want her to leave me, even if it were in this room next to the kitchen. Not now.

Not ever.

I couldn't do anything about the 'ever,' but I could do something about the 'now,' if Rosalie'd let me.

"'Kay," she said softly, and I felt her smile, "and I'd like the help ... and the company."

I smiled.

I smiled a very, little, tiny smile to myself that I didn't even let God see if He were looking.

'Cause if God could see me smiling to myself like this, then Rosalie would see it, and see I was so, so happy inside.

But I couldn't let her know that. That's like her knowing I loved her, and we couldn't have that, because all sorts of weird stuff would happen, like they've been happening today, the weirdest day in the world.

Rosalie Hale's birthday-day.

She picked me and herself up off the couch, easily, and set me back on my feet, steadying me to make sure I didn't stumble and fall, and we went back to the kitchen to make supper.

Supper of tuna-fish sandwiches.

Yeah. You heard me right: tuna-salad sandwiches, _not_ _'sushi-grade Ahi'_ tuna, but 'chicken of the sea' tuna-_salad_ sandwiches on white Wonder bread, of all things.

I'm glad her mom wasn't here now to see this. Rosalie Hale had her lunches packed for her, and her packed lunches ... ? Kale-this and Quinoa-that, and ... whatever unpronounceable juice she was drinking from whatever freshly squeezed tropical fruit from whatever native tribe that harvested it, and all of it organic.

Okay, I have a question. How do _you_ pronounce _Açaí?_ Just curious.

And what the hell is _Açaí_ berry anyway, and yes, I know it's a berry. I'm not _that_ stupid, okay?

Like, okay, a PBJ, right?

Wrong. Rosalie Hale had sprouted-seed bread and the 'butter'? It was almond-hazelnut spread. The 'jelly'? Either orange marmalade that her Great Aunt sent her from England (in glass jars) or something called sylt lingon imported directly from Sweden.

I don't know what sylt lingon is. Don't ask me. Tastes really, really good, though.

Rosalie Hale didn't (often) drink coffee from Starbucks. Why would she stoop so low? She had civet coffee. You know, the coffee from Asia that costs one-hundred dollars for four ounces?

I'm not joking.

'Civet' coffee.

It's very subtle and smooth. It tastes ... well, _nice._

But one-hundred dollars nice?

Not for me to say. Not my money.

But it was for Rosalie to say, and she did.

So: supper of tuna-salad sandwiches on Wonder bread?

If I met her mom tonight and she saw me making this for _her daughter?_

I think she'd draw and quarter me so she could harvest my liver to cook and then to serve with fava beans and a nice chianti.

And, ... but supper wasn't just for her, or just for us.

There were six loaves of bread on the table and cans and cans and cans of tuna. A whole big bag of single-serving bags of baked potato chips and a twenty-four count juice brick case.

When Rosalie said supper was going to feed an army, she wasn't joking.

But what army? Did she do charitable work like serve these at a soup kitchen? This wasn't fare for her and her cheerleader buddies, so ...

Rosalie returned to making a tuna-salad sandwich. She did this like she did everything, with care and deliberation, concentrating intensely on her work, and each sandwich she made was ... perfect: neat, evenly spread, cut in half just so.

Then she filled a little brown lunch bag with two sandwiches, each wrapped individually, a bag of chips and a juice brick.

Watching Rosalie Hale work at making a tuna-salad sandwich was watching an artist paint a work of art.

Rosalie looked up from her work, feeling me gawking at her, and she smirked.

I blushed, embarrassed, caught.

She chuckled lightly and waved to the table laden with sandwich fixings.

"Oh!" I said, surprised. Yeah, I was supposed to be helping her make the sandwiches, right? Not staring at her as she made them, wanting and wondering what her deliberate hands could and would do to me if they weren't making sandwiches.

Because I _definitely_ didn't wonder that. Not at all.

I rejoined her, blushing, and started in on making the next sandwich, the big bowl of mixed tuna salad between us on the table.

Rosalie was smiling lightly, looking down at the sandwich she was making, glancing, surreptitiously, at the one I was making.

"This is ... fun, right?" she asked slowly, cautiously.

I thought about it for a second.

Okay, it was _still_ weird.

But it was fun, this moment with her, doing something together, a quiet time with no expectations, just us, making sandwiches in the kitchen.

Then I burst out laughing.

Rosalie smiled at me, carefully. "What?" she said.

I laughed still. "Rosalie," I said, "we're two girls in the kitchen making sandwiches. If we had boyfriends and they told us to go make them a 'sammich,' and we're here, doing just that ..."

I laughed again.

"Well," I said quickly, seeing Rosalie's stone-cold glare. "I thought it was funny."

"Bella, ..." she glowered, furious.

_"What?" _I squeaked, backing away from her quickly as she advanced on me.

She was actually pushing up her sleeves past her elbows.

Uh, oh! Was this a good time to remind her that she _wasn't_ supposed to beat the crap out of me today? You know, her promise to herself and everything? Or would that only make matters worse for me?

"Um ..." I said helplessly as I back away.

Rosalie advanced and she was actually _snarling!_ Can you believe it?

Giggle-worthy, if it weren't her, and it weren't me, here and now, about to be ... whatever-ed by her.

Terrifying in the moment, I tell you what.

_BONK!_

I backed into something hard and solid and metallic.

Rosalie put her hands on either side of my head against the refrigerator.

That darn refrigerator!

"Bella," Rosalie purred possessively, pleased she had me.

"Urg?" I squeaked.

Rosalie face came to me, her mouth smirking, and I tried to press myself into the refrigerator.

She kissed me, softly, sweetly, demandingly.

I almost fainted with relief.

_GOD!_ That woman was going to kill me, I swear.

My knees were weak as I kissed her back. The only thing keeping me from keeling over onto the floor were her lips pressed against mine.

She pulled back, smirking.

"Bella?" she demanded, her eyes smoldering.

"Yeah?" I asked helplessly lost under her spell.

"Go make me a sammich."

She laughed easily and let me go, her conquest. She turned away, her hips swaying hypnotically as she strutted back to the table, then picked up the butter knife and resumed the work I had just found so funny a moment ago and that she was so pleased to find funny now.

I returned to the table shakily and picked up my own tablespoon, scooping a large chunk of tuna to spread on the sandwich ... sorry: the _sammich_ I was making for her.

But then a thought struck me.

"Does this mean I'm your girl friend, Rosalie Hale?"

The look in her eye.

I... fucking... ran. I think I may have screamed as I ran.

_"Bella Swan!" _I heard behind me as I ran up the stairs ... yeah, to her room, but, like, where else could I go? _"I'm SO gonna git ya!" _she shouted.

And she laughed as I heard her footfalls, chasing me, gaining on me with every step.

If this were our little game of 'manhunt,' I ... well ... I didn't mind it if I were to get caught.

Not this time.

* * *

**A/N:** Um, no a/n this time, my sweeties. Just the third rewrite until I let go of the seriousness and Bella and Rosalie have a little bit of fun, for once. Hope it isn't too unusual for them in the coming chapters, but we'll see, yeah? Off to Mass.


End file.
